CHAPTER THIRTY

First Centurion Vulpa pulled his heavy body up over the hanging cornice. The sound of the metal in his uniform scraping against the ice surface sent echoes rolling down the mountain. He glanced down at the uniform. Many of the black bands awarded him as decoration for valor had been scraped away by his climb. Breaks in the suit that had occurred during the crash landing of his ship had rendered it only barely functional. He had had to continue to wear it as protection against the rising cold temperature.

There was only a little farther to go. Exercising all the willpower that two brains could offer, he climbed upward. By the time he had reached the summit station, he knew he had no more powers of exertion left in his body. He lay still for a long time.

Finally he could force his body to rise. Without looking around him, he began stepping heavily across the wreckage until he reached the center where the remains of the once-powerful weapon stood. Its shell still rose mightily toward the sky, dark gray and gloomy. But it stood on a mangled foundation. The awesomely powerful energy pump was in jagged ruins. Fragments of the station, broken, split, bent, lay about the still-intact flooring. At points Vulpa could see a helmet or uniform from one of his warriors perceivable beneath some part of the ruins. A bridge of burned metal had formed across the gaping elevator shaft. Except for the shell of the gun, nothing tangible revealed what it once had been.

Leaning his heavy body against the shell of the weapon, Vulpa resolved to go into a meditative state. The ability to do that in the midst of a disaster such as this was a second-brain quality for which he was extremely grateful.

He could meditate here, oblivious of the wreckage around him and what it meant to his life, for a long time.

Perhaps for the rest of eternity.

Or until a reinforcement garrison arrived.

Or until he died.

It did not matter.

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