14

The gangway was down.

Kusum froze on the dock when he saw it. It was no illusion. Moonlight glinted icy blue from its aluminum steps and railings.

How? He could not imagine—

He broke into a run, taking the steps two at a time and sprinting across the deck to the door to the pilot’s quarters. The lock was still in place. He pulled on it—still intact and locked.

He leaned against the door and waited for his pounding heart to slow. For a moment he had thought someone had come aboard and released Jack and Kolabati.

He tapped on the steel door with the key to the lock.

“Bati? Come to the door. I wish to speak to you.”

Silence.

“Bati?”

Kusum pressed an ear to the door. He sensed more than silence on the other side. There was an indefinable feeling of emptiness there. Alarmed, he jammed the key into the padlock—

—and hesitated.

He was dealing with Repairman Jack here and was wary of underestimating him. Jack was probably armed and unquestionably dangerous. He might well be waiting in there with a drawn pistol ready to blast a hole in whoever opened the door.

But it felt empty. Kusum decided to trust his senses. He twisted the key, removed the padlock, and pulled the door open.

The hallway was empty. He glanced into the pilot’s cabin-empty! But how—?

And then he saw the hole in the floor. For an instant he thought a rakosh had broken through into the compartment; then he saw part of the iron bed frame on the floor and understood.

The audacity of that man! He had escaped into the heart of the rakoshi quarters—and had taken Kolabati with him! He smiled to himself. They were probably still down there somewhere, cowering on a catwalk. Bati’s necklace would protect her. But Jack might well have fallen victim to a rakosh by now.

Then he remembered the lowered gangplank. Cursing in his native tongue, he hurried from the pilot’s quarters to the hatch over the main hold. He lifted the entry port and peered below.

The rakoshi were agitated. Through the murky light he could see their dark forms mixing and moving about chaotically on the floor of the hold. Half a dozen feet below him was the elevator platform. Immediately he noticed the torch on its side, the scorched wood. He leaped through the trapdoor to the elevator and started it down.

Something lay on the floor of the hold. When he had descended halfway to the floor, he saw that it was a dead rakosh. Rage suffused Kusum. Dead! Its head—what was left of it—was a mass of charred flesh!

With a trembling hand, Kusum reversed the elevator.

That man! That thrice-cursed American! How had he done it? If only the rakoshi could speak! Not only had Jack escaped with Kolabati, he had killed a rakosh in the process! Kusum felt as if he had lost a part of himself.

As soon as the elevator reached the top, Kusum scrambled onto the deck and rushed back to the pilot’s quarters. Something he had seen on the floor there…

Yes! Here it was, near the hole in the floor, a shirt—the shirt Jack had been wearing when Kusum had last seen him. Kusum picked it up. It was still damp with sweat.

He had planned to let Jack live, but all that was changed now. Kusum had known Jack was resourceful, but had never dreamed him capable of escaping through the midst of a nest of rakoshi. The man had gone too far tonight. And he was too dangerous to be allowed to roam free with what he now knew.

Jack would have to die.

He could not deny a trace of regret in the decision, yet Kusum was sure Jack had good karma and would shortly be reincarnated into a life of quality.

A slow smile stretched Kusum’s thin lips as he hefted the sweaty shirt in his hand. The Mother rakosh would do it, and Kusum already had a plan for her. The irony of it was delicious.