“You have seen the body in the car, Ulv. So you must have seen that it is that of a magter. I killed him myself, because I would rather kill one, or ten, or even a hundred men than have everyone on this planet destroyed. I killed him in a fair fight and now I am going to examine his body. There is something very strange and different about the magter, you know that yourself. If I can find out what it is, perhaps we can make them stop this war, and not bomb Nyjord.”
Ulv was still angry, but he lowered the blowgun a little. “I wish there were no offworlders,” he said. “I wish that none of you had ever come. Nothing was wrong until you started coming. The magter were the strongest, and they killed; but they also helped. Now they want to fight a war with your weapons, and for this you are going to kill my world. And you want me to help you!”
“Not me—yourself!” Brion said wearily. “There’s no going back, that’s the one thing we can’t do. Maybe Dis would have been better off without off planet contact. Maybe not. In any case, you have to forget about that. You have contact now with the rest of the galaxy, for better or for worse. You’ve got a problem to solve, and I’m here to help you solve it.”
Seconds ticked by as Ulv, unmoving, fought with questions that were novel to his life. Could killing stop death? Could he help his people by helping strangers to fight and kill them? His world had changed and he didn’t like it. He must make a giant effort to change with it.
Abruptly, he pushed the blowgun into a thong at his waist, turned and strode out.
“Too much for my nerves,” Telt said, settling his gun back in the holster. “You don’t know how happy I’m gonna be when this whole damn thing is over. Even if the planet goes bang, I don’t care. I’m finished.” He walked out to the sand car, keeping a careful eye on the Disan crouched against the wall.
Brion turned back to Lea, whose eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. He went to her.
“Running,” she said, and her voice had a toneless emptiness that screamed louder than any emotion. “They ran by the open door of my room and I could see them when they killed Dr. Stine. Just butchered him like an animal, chopping him down. Then one came into the room and that’s all I remember.” She turned her head slowly and looked at Brion. “What happened? Why am I here?”
“They’re … dead,” he told her. “All of them. After the raid the Disans blew up the building. You’re the only one that survived. That was Ulv who came into your room, the Disan we met in the desert. He brought you away and hid you here in the city.”
“When do we leave?” she asked in the same empty tones, turning her face to the wall. “When do we get off this planet?”
“Today is the last day. The deadline is midnight. Krafft will have a ship pick us up when we are ready. But we still have our job to do. I’ve got that body. You’re going to have to examine it. We must find out about the magter. …”
“Nothing can be done now except leave.” Her voice was a dull monotone. “There is only so much that a person can do, and I’ve done it. Please have the ship come; I want to leave now.”
Brion bit his lip in helpless frustration. Nothing seemed to penetrate the apathy into which she had sunk. Too much shock, too much terror, in too short a time. He took her chin in his hand and turned her head to face him. She didn’t resist, but her eyes were shining with tears; tears trickled down her cheeks.
“Take me home, Brion, please take me home.”
He could only brush her sodden hair back from her face, and force himself to smile at her. The moments of time were running out, faster and faster, and he no longer knew what to do. The examination had to be made—yet he couldn’t force her. He looked for the med box and saw that Telt had taken it back to the sand car. There might be something in it that could help—a tranquilizer perhaps.
Telt had some of his instruments open on the chart table and was examining a tape with a pocket magnifier when Brion entered. He jumped nervously and put the tape behind his back, then relaxed when he saw who it was.
“I thought you were the creepie out there, coming for a look,” he whispered. “Maybe you trust him—but I can’t afford to. Can’t even use the radio. I’m getting out of here now. I have to tell Hys!”
“Tell him what?” Brion asked sharply. “What is all the mystery about?”
Telt handed him the magnifier and tape. “Look at that—recording tape from my scintillation counter. Red verticals are five-minute intervals, the wiggly black horizontal line is the radioactivity level. All this where the line goes up and down, that’s when we were driving out to the attack. Varying hot level of the rock and ground.”
“What’s the big peak in the middle?”
“That coincides exactly with our visit to the house of horrors! When we went through the hole in the bottom of the tower!” He couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice.
“Does it mean that. …”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure. I have to compare it with the other tapes back at base. It could be the stone of the tower—some of these heavy rocks have got a high natural count. There maybe could be a box of instruments there with fluorescent dials. Or it
