'A sound, high, thin, something like that made by a generator. But it had something extra to it. Something like-' Massak shook his head. 'I can't describe it. Maybe it was just imagination.' He looked at the passage with its rounded roof and concave floor. 'This place can give you all sorts of ideas. Look at it-it's just like a burrow.'
One which could have been made by a gigantic worm slithering through plastic magma or grinding its way through rock with adamantine teeth. Fancies enhanced by the silence, the smooth walls, the mounting tension as the party moved along what could easily become a trap.
'If anything comes at us, anything really big, that is, we wouldn't stand a chance.' Massak gestured with his gun. 'No niches,' he explained. 'No cracks to duck into. No side passages. We could be caught front and back and turned into pulp.'
'If anything came,' agreed Dumarest. 'If we couldn't stop it.'
'You don't think there's any danger?'
'Not from things as large as you're talking about.'
'Maybe not,' admitted the mercenary. 'Things that big would have to eat and there's damn all around here that I can see. But that brings up another matter-where are all those who came this way before?'
'If any did.'
'They must have done if they were following the lure of what's supposed to lie ahead. I've been trying to figure out these caverns and galleries and they seem to me to all be leading to a common point. Maybe Chenault's found a shortcut but, even so, others must have used it. So where are their bodies? Discarded equipment? Supplies? Clothing? We've left enough behind us and others must have done the same.'
One, at least, had done more.
Dumarest saw it as they emerged into a vaulted chamber set with patches of brilliance, the mouth of a tunnel gaping opposite the one they had left. Close beside it, set upright against the wall, rested the unmistakable tracery of a skeleton.
'Bones!' Massak stared at the place, gun lifting with automatic reflex in his hand. 'Someone died there.'
'A woman.' Toyanna stepped back after making her examination. 'Look at the shape of the pelvis; the set of the thighs. The skull, too, bears feminine characteristics. And yet there's a strangeness about it. As if it wasn't wholly human.'
Dumarest said, 'Can you tell the age?'
'Of the woman? About middle-age, I'd say.'
'No. How long it's been here.'
'Impossible.' Toyanna's shrug was expressive. 'What we're looking at seems to be an imprint of the skeletal structure rather than the bones themselves. Something like a negative print-see how white they are against the dark background?'
Lopakhin said, 'I've done work like this. You take an object, a leaf, flower, animal, insect- anything will do. You place it on a prepared and sensitized surface then expose it to a blast of high-intensity radiation. The result is an image of the object but one containing more detail than can normally be seen. A kind of aura.' His hand lifted to rest on the stone. 'See? This faint blurring following the bones. And here. And here.' His fingers moved to halt over the pelvic area. 'Could she have been pregnant?'
Toyanna shrugged. 'It's possible, I suppose. Why do you ask?'
'This.' Lopakhin moved his finger. 'See? This part. And this. There's a different kind of shading.' His hand dropped to his side as he moved away. 'But what killed her?'
* * *
Dumarest stirred, waking instantly, one hand reaching for the knife in his boot. Kneeling beside him Massak shook his head.
'No need for that, Earl. Listen.'
The air was filled with a thin, high singing sound that wavered, carrying overtones of bells.
'Is this what you heard before?'
'Yes, but it's louder now. Closer.' In the dimness the mercenary's face was tense. 'Much closer-and it's coming nearer.'
Wailing and singing from the air, the stone, the gaping mouth of the tunnel beside which the tracery of the skeleton kept warning guard.
One almost invisible now; the gleaming patches had dulled to somber glows, the chamber gaining a new menace with the loss of illumination. A good place to stay, he'd decided. One in which to check their gear and rest. To sleep as he had slept while Massak had stood watch. As the others were still sleeping.
'Earl?' The wailing, undulating sound had touched the mercenary on the raw. 'What the hell is it?'
A question echoed by Mirza Karroum as she woke, eyes bleared, rubbing strength into her sagging cheeks.
'I don't know.' Dumarest touched Lopakhin on the shoulder, found Toyanna already alert. 'Spread out. Make no sound and don't move. Whatever it is we don't want to attract its attention.'
Good advice but not easy to follow. Not when the sound grew louder; shrilling, tinkling, sweet with the music of bells, strong with the whine of generators. Resting his fingers against the casket, Dumarest felt the transparency quiver beneath his touch. Beneath the somnolent figure it contained, a warning lamp began to flash in pulses of red.
'Give me room!' Toyanna had spotted the signal. A panel lifted as Dumarest moved to one side, her fingers deft as she manipulated keys. 'His heart,' she explained. 'If it gets any worse I'll have to introduce a bypass.'
'I thought you dumped all nonessential equipment.'
'This is essential.' She sighed her relief as the red lamp ceased its flashing. 'His heart is a muscle too, remember, and as weak as the rest of him. I had to provide for an emergency.'
One drowned in the present problem. The singing, chiming, wailing sound which now filled the chamber with demanding noise.
'Look!' Lopakhin pointed. 'The skeleton!' The tracery was glowing as if each bone had been delineated in fire. 'The light!'
It filled the mouth of the tunnel, eye-bright, scintillating, glowing as if it was made of ice and diamond and cold, cold flame. A writhing something which flowed from the opening to hang in a shimmering mist of glowing radiance. One which shifted, changed, adopted new and enticing configurations. A thing of beauty, bright, clean, wonderful. One which sang.
Sound which dominated the ear as the glowing mist dominated the eye. As the subtle pulsing of it dominated the mind with its hypnotic spell.
'Don't look at it!' Dumarest forced himself to turn away, lifting a hand to cover Massak's eyes.
One the mercenary jerked away as he turned, snarling. 'Don't look,' snapped Dumarest. 'Don't let it get to you.'
'It's harmless. Just a cloud of brilliance. It shows me things.'
'It's sucking your mind.'
'No. That's stupid. It-'
'Damn you! Do as I say!' Dumarest lifted his hand, the fingers clenched, a fist which he poised to strike, then dropped as Lopakhin rose to his feet. 'Tyner! Sit down! No, man! No!'
'Hilary!' The artist stepped toward the glowing radiance, hands extended, his face illuminated by something more than reflected light. 'Hilary! My darling! You came back to me!'
'No!' Dumarest tried to rise and was thrown back against the wall by a sweep of the mercenary's arm. 'Let me-'
'Stay put. There's nothing you can do. It's too late.'
Lopakhin had closed the distance between himself and the shimmering cloud. He walked up to it, into it, froze as it closed around him.
'God!' Massak lifted his gun. 'It's eating him!'
'Don't shoot!' Dumarest slammed down the weapon. 'It's too late.'
'I can give him an easy out.'
'He doesn't need it. Look at his face.'
