Jungle Of Steel And Stone

saw one of his. It's a spirit-totem erected to show respect for the spirits in a place of the dead. Toby recognized this as a cemetery.'

'But no sign of Toby himself?'

Veil felt Reyna shake her head. 'I found the place where he went to ground. There's a stream beyond the woods behind me.'

'I know. I saw it.'

'That's where he rested—near the bank.' She paused and looked up at Veil. 'There were feces and vomit around the site, as you would expect,' she continued with a slightly puzzled frown. 'What's surprising is that the feces aren't as loose as you'd think they would be in somebody suffering from typhus or dysentery—or both. We know he's very sick and badly injured. Lord, the very fact that he can still walk at all is amazing. He must have a very high fever and be in terrible pain.'

'It could be the heroin,' Veil said as he absently stroked Reyna's hair.

'What?'

'The heroin, Reyna. Toby may have accidentally found how to use it in a way that can benefit him. It's true that it wouldn't take much of it to kill him, but it's also true that if he, say, sniffs a small amount at a time, he'll get the benefit of its medicinal properties. Heroin is an unbelievably potent anesthetic, of course, but it also tends to dehydrate. It would tighten his bowels somewhat. In this case, the crap inside that idol could be Toby's salvation— at least for a time.'

'But how could he know to sniff it?'

Veil shrugged. 'It comes from the Nal-toon, right? It's a divine gift, so he has to do something with it. It tastes like hell, so he must have tried smelling it and gotten some into his nose. Bingo.'

'If that's true, Veil, then it's another miracle.'

'Mmm. What do you think the chances are that he'll come back there?'

'No chance. If Toby intended to use that place again, he'd be there now—during the day. He was there last night, but he's someplace else now. Sick or not, Toby feels that he must keep moving as best he can.' Reyna sighed, rose to her feet, and brushed off her jeans. 'Rest time is over. I'm going ahead.'

'Let me come with you,' Veil said, rising. 'I'm not the tracker you are, but I'm not bad.'

'Indeed,' Reyna replied impishly, rising up on her toes to kiss him. 'You're not bad at anything. Still, you'd only frighten him, and I don't want you getting a spear in the belly button. Sick as he is, he probably hasn't gone far.

You wait here, I'll be back.'

* * *

Veil glanced at his watch; it was almost six-thirty. He cursed softly under his breath, then set off at a quick pace through the field of grave markers. He passed through a stand of trees, jumped over a stream, and hurried toward the southeast end of the cemetery. He sighed with relief when he saw Reyna sitting on the edge of a low stone wall that marked the border of the cemetery. Behind her, traffic moved by on Fifty-eighth Street. Stripped of the muffling effect of the trees inside the cemetery, the air was filled with the groaning hum of rush-hour traffic on the Queens leg of the Long Island Expressway.

'I was worried about you,' Veil said as he sat on the wall next to Reyna. 'You've been gone all afternoon.'

'I'm sorry,' Reyna replied, squeezing Veil's hand. 'I've been waiting. I think you passed Toby somewhere back there. I wanted to come back and get you, but I was afraid to take a chance that he might get spooked and slip out ahead of us at this end.'

Veil raised his eyebrows slightly, then shaded his eyes from the slanting rays of the setting sun and looked back the way he had come. 'You're sure he's still back there?'

'Not a hundred percent, maybe ninety. After I left you I did a quick walk-through to this end. I figured that if I found sign here, it would mean that he was still ahead of us and we wouldn't waste time looking any longer in this cemetery. Anyway, as you can see, there's a lot of bare ground down here at this end. I couldn't find any tracks.'

'Granted that he's sick, hurt, and moving very carefully, it's still only a mile, maybe less, from the stream to here. You'd think he would have come farther during the night.'

Reyna twisted around to look at the expressway and the embankment beyond. 'I know. Just because I couldn't find sign doesn't mean that he's still back there.'

'We still have a couple of hours of daylight left. If you want to go into Mount Olive and look around, I'll stand guard here.'

'It's a thought,' Reyna said absently.

'It's your decision, Reyna.'

'We'll both wait here,' Reyna announced decisively. 'By the time I get started over there, it will be dark, anyway. I still believe he's behind us. If we spread out a bit and stay through the night, we may at least keep him contained here—and tomorrow I'll go back in and really start looking. We'll keep the tape recorder running. Do you think the batteries will last?'

'I have spares in my pocket.' Veil paused, turned to Reyna. 'It may be time to start thinking about what we're going to do with Toby after we find him.'

Reyna looked away. 'I haven't even tried to think that far ahead.'

'I'm not sure I believe you, Reyna. Even assuming that we nab him before anybody else does, we still have big problems, don't we?'

'Yes,' Reyna answered softly.

'The obvious first step is to turn him in to the police after we hide the idol somewhere. Then we mount the best possible legal defense, which I'm sure we can do considering the publicity Toby has generated.'

'That's not the point, Veil.'

'Prince Toby of the K'ung isn't going to fare too well when he comes up against our legal system, is he?'

'No.' Reyna shuddered, then abruptly swept her hair back from her face in an almost defiant gesture. 'There are two murder charges against him. The fact that Toby acted both times in self-defense and that there are extenuating circumstances won't help him escape a trial. The authorities will never allow him out on bail, which means that Toby could be required to spend months in a prison cell. And then he could get a prison sentence. He won't last a week in a cell, Veil. It will kill him. He'll be alone in a cage, in a place where nobody speaks his language. . . . Toby will simply refuse to eat or drink anything, and then the end will come very quickly. In his mind he will have failed, and the Nal-toon will be lost to his people forever. The will to live will drain out of him like water down a drain.'

'And he could be right about the idol being lost to his people forever. Not a very happy ending.'

Reyna heaved a deep sigh, then bowed her head. 'Shit,' she murmured dispassionately.

Veil put his hand under Reyna's chin and gently lifted her head. Her eyes were filled with tears. 'We've looked at the problem and discussed it, as we had to,' Veil said evenly. 'We had to think a couple of steps ahead, but now it's only a waste of time to be distracted by future problems. You need to focus all your energy and concentration on finding Toby. You let me worry about what to do with him when you do, okay?'

Reyna stared into Veil's eyes for a few moments, then nodded and forced a smile. 'Okay.'

'Good!' Veil kissed Reyna on the forehead. 'Now let's talk about important things. It could be a long night, and it's time to think about how to keep the members of this safari in good spirits.'

This time Reyna's smile was genuine. 'You're going for food?' 'Right.'

'I wondered when somebody was going to think about feeding the chief tracker of this expedition.'

'I propose to pick up provisions from the jungle deli, which I'm sure is only a block or two away. What will the chief tracker have?'

'Roast beef on a roll—make that two—with lettuce, tomato, and mayo. Black coffee. And watch out for unfriendly natives; since you'll be carrying the provisions,

I don't want you to get mugged.'

* * *

Veil ordered the sandwiches and coffee to go in a nearby delicatessen, then went to a pay phone in the corner. He dropped a quarter in the slot and dialed a number. Victor Raskolnikov answered on the third ring.