Part 11

1

It was the consensus of opinion at the mountain site that they all should be very visible and look busy for the fly over of the drone today.

Jonnie was very concerned. It was absolutely vital that Terl continue with his gold scheme. All their own plans depended on it utterly.

They had weighed various alternates to their own strategy but none of them was good. They could fly into the old defense base now—Angus had gotten the heliport door to work—but they only used it for supplies. It was a long way from ready. The parson’s idea that they should bury the dead there was shelved due to the magnitude of the task and their own few numbers. The parson had decided the place was really a tomb anyway. Later, perhaps, when they had freed the planet—if they succeeded in that—they could bury the dead. Now their energies must be devoted to the living and a possible future. So they really couldn’t withdraw into the old primary defense base. It wasn’t ready and they were not defeated. Not yet anyway.

Keeping Terl going on with his plan was their single hope. But Jonnie was very concerned. In that last interview he realized Terl was no longer sane, if he ever had been.

Gold was the bait in the trap for Terl. So Jonnie added to their plans.

They worked in a rush from the last passing of the drone yesterday to prepare for its passing today.

The lode core he had blasted out had hit the opposite side of the canyon and rebounded back in shattered pieces to lie upon the top of the new rockfall at the canyon bottom.

Jonnie fashioned a remote-control box for a blade scraper machine they could afford to lose.

Robert the Fox fashioned a lifelike dummy to strap into the seat. The dummy’s hands in mittens were rigged to move back and forth when the machine ran. Knowing the macabre was Terl’s favorite dish, he also wadded up scraps of discarded clothing and patterned it with steer blood.

They rigged an ore net to the end of a crane cable and filled it with white quartz from the upper tunnel. Taking what wire gold they had, they encrusted the top of the lode with the specimens.

In the black, brief period of no wind at dawn, they cabled the blade scraper down to the top of the rockfall.

An operator hidden in a cleft at the top of the cliff on the opposite side of the canyon, from which perch the blade scraper could be seen, made the scraper make a flat place (at risk of its toppling into the river) and dig into the pile.

The ore net, with its carefully prepared load, was craned down to the side of the blade scraper.

It was ready long before the drone came, so Jonnie gathered them at the top of the shaft.

“Wire gold goes in pockets,” he told them. “It says so in the old man-manuals on mining. There is a possibility that there is another pocket in this vein. It could be two hundred, five hundred feet up the vein from the cliff. It could have little gold, it could have much.

“What we’ve got to do now is reverse direction on the vein and drift along it into the mountain. It will be much faster since we can blast now.

“So rig this cage again so it doesn’t slip and get to work mining up that vein. We have about sixty days left until Day 92. Probably we will have to deliver the gold by Day 86. So get going and hope!”

“And pray,” added the parson.

2

A very masterful Terl sat in the morning sunlight of his office, pen held in claws, carefully not trembling. He was about to write the report and round off his perfect crime.

His day was efficiently planned. He would write the report, get the latest recon pictures after the drone passed over, and, if the animals were there, fire the drone. Zzt was nattering to anybody that would listen that it blocked the hangar firing gate and he could not get ore freighters in and out to service them, and so Terl would get Zzt to insist he fire it to save space. Then he would see Ker and threaten him into being cooperative as the new Planet Head.

But Terl somehow felt unhappy. This morning sunlight, dancing across his rug, even though filtered by the colored lead glass of the canopy, was a reminder he was still on this accursed planet. Gone were his dreams of a wealthy Terl, living in luxury on Psychlo. But no matter. One had to do what one had to do.

For the tenth time he started to write the report. So far, he had not gotten through the first line of the heading, much less the report. Something was nagging him.

Ah, yes! He didn’t have Jayed’s badge or badge number! The agent had been reaching into his shirt, undoubtedly to show him the badge and identification disk of an I.B.I. operative. Also, if he knew the medical department, they had just dumped the bodies on the benches and he had better put them on ledges.

By plan he would have to have ten bodies. He now had five, counting the three guards that had blown themselves up. He sighed. It had been a beautiful plan: put the gold in the coffins, ship them home, and when he returned there, dig up the coffins some dark Psychlo night, melt them down, and lord it over everyone as a very rich fellow! Well, that was all finished now. The arrival of Jayed had ended it. And the treacherous animals had betrayed him.

He needed the badge and I.B.I. identification number. He would feel better if he cuffed Jayed’s body a time or two. He picked up a breathe-mask and went out of the compound.

As he passed the cage of the females, he noticed a bundle of food and firewood had been left outside the gate. He gave it a kick and would have passed on when he realized that “psychic powers” might prematurely alert the animals in the mountains. He shut off the electrical circuit with his remote, opened the cage door, and threw the bundle violently at the two females. It landed in their fire and the small one scrambled to salvage it before it burned. He noticed the other one was holding a stainless steel man-knife from some old ruin. He went over and wrested it out of her hand. Then, remembering “psychic powers,” he attempted to pat her on the head. She didn’t seem to like it.

Terl put the knife in his belt, went out, reconnected the juice, and stuffed the remote in his breast pocket. The younger one was saying something in man-language, something undoubtedly harsh. Treacherous creatures, these animals. Well, all that would be handled soon. After the gas drone had done its work, he’d be through with this pair. And good riddance.

He rumbled on down to the morgue, and sure enough, the medicals had just dumped the bodies and not even on a bench! He turned on the lights, closed the door, and hoisted a thousand pounds of Numph onto a shelf. Even in death the old bungler looked stupid, an expression of amazement still on his face. Not all the blood had dried yet, and Terl got it on his hands. He wiped them off on Numph’s coat.

Jayed’s body was surprisingly light, not more than seven hundred pounds. Terl plunked it down on a table and cuffed it.

“Blast you,” said Terl to the corpse. “If you hadn’t shown up my future would have been a beautiful dream.” He cuffed the face again.

Mange. The creature had mange. Terl looked at the corpse sourly. Then he reached over and, with clenched fangs, gripped its throat and choked it. He threw the head back and it hit the table with a thud. Terl cuffed it again.

He took hold of himself. He had to be calm, cool, competent. Where was the badge? He patted the jacket and couldn’t feel any lump.

Maybe Jayed had carried the badge in his boots. Hollow soles were an I.B.I. specialty. He pulled the boots off and examined them. No hollow soles.

Blast it, the fellow carried his badge somewhere! Terl patted the ragged trousers. Nothing. He stood back from the corpse. What a pitiful spectacle this Jayed was! The clothes were full of holes. The fur was diseased.

Where was it? He had been reaching for something! Terl ripped the bloodied shirt and jacket with a jerk that bared the chest. He examined the rags that had torn off in his paws. Nothing in them. Then he noticed the chest. He stared.

The three horizontal bands! The brand of a criminal.

The rags fell from Terl’s talons. He bent closer, staring at the chest.

No mistake.

The criminal brand.

He bent closer and scraped at it. No, it was actually burned in!

He gave it an expert appraisal. It was about a year old.

Hastily he turned and seized the right ankle of the corpse. Yes! The shackle scars, complete with the barb marks, of the imperial prison. A closer look. Also about a year old.

Terl backed up to the wall and stared at the corpse.

It was not an unfamiliar story. An official or an agent had committed a crime in the performance of duty or had been stupid enough to tamper with a crime committed by the aristocracy, had been drummed out of his position and thrown into the imperial prisons.

Suddenly Terl knew exactly what Jayed had done. He had used his talents to escape. He had forged papers as “Snit” and he had worked his way through the personnel lineup of Intergalactic Mining and gotten himself shipped to the farthest outpost of the company.

Jayed had been on the run!

It hit Terl like a thunderbolt. Jayed had not been investigating anything here! Jayed was in hiding. His gesture to his chest was to show Terl the brand and put himself at Terl’s mercy. And it would have worked! Terl could have used him in devious ways.

All these months of worry!

All about nothing.

Terl looked at the pitiful, mangy creature on the table. It was a good thing the door was closed because for quite a while Terl couldn’t stop laughing.

3

Once more that day, Terl was sitting at his desk. He was relaxed, at ease. There was a saucepan of kerbango there and he wasn’t even chewing on it.

His pen moved easily on the report. This changed the whole thing. It was very simple.

Despite warning Numph to be watchful—copy of warning enclosed—due to the number of criminals in the work force, a criminal whose papers said his name was “Snit” had gotten into the offices with probable intent to rob, and walked in on Numph, who had shot him. Before he died the criminal had shot Numph. Witnessed statements to hand and enclosed. The personnel department in the home office could possibly institute physical examinations as this was the second branded criminal received in recent drafts of personnel. It was, of course, necessary for the company to make a profit and understandable that this was a very out-of-the-way planet, but it had only one security officer. But the matter was actually of no great importance, and one would not venture to criticize the practices of the home office since they knew what they were doing. Situation well in hand. A recently appointed deputy had competently assumed the duties of Planet Head. The crime was simple and routine. Bodies en route at next semiannual firing.

That was that. An expansive Terl finished packaging the evidence and picto-recorder disks. Nobody would be interested anyway. He called Chirk and, with a playful paw on her rump, gave her the package to log and include in the dispatch box. She left and he glanced at the clock. He was overdue at the receiving machine. He went over to it and punched the coordinates of the pictures he wanted and they came whirring forth. He glanced at them casually: the drone firing schedule had to be confirmed. Yes, they were up there at the minesite, working with the cage. . . .

Suddenly he sat forward and spread the pictures out.

They had a blade scraper operating down at the bottom of the cliff, turning over the rubble!

Yes! A crane was raising an ore net . . . What was that in the basket?

He punched rapid keys on the machine and got a closer-view picture. He looked at it. He looked at the analysis squiggle at the side: he didn’t have to analyze that; he knew it! It was gold.

They were recovering the lode out of the slide!

He stood up and examined the pictures more closely. What was this over at the side of the slide? Ah, the mangled remains of dead bodies. They’d lost a crew in the drift and with stupid sentimentality they were also digging them out. Why bother? They didn’t have to ship them to home planet. Who cared about the corpses of animals? But wait, that meant they must have been up to the lode from behind.

And what were they doing with the cage? Still mining? Ah, pockets. They must have spotted another pocket on that vein up inside the mountain. The mining man in Terl told him that was a good possibility.

He looked at the gold in that ore net. Several hundred pounds of it? He crashed down in his chair and smiled. He began to chuckle.

That drone. He didn’t have to fire it. It could wait till Day 93. Then for sure, but not now. No, by the crap nebula, not now!

How wonderful he felt. It had been ages since his head hadn’t ached. He reached out a paw. The talons were steady as bedrock.

4

Terl bounced up, pulsing with good cheer and energy. He grabbed some equipment and packages.

He still had a schedule, but it was different.

He sailed through the compound and into the office of the Planet Head.

Attendants had finished mopping up blood, but there were some stains left. The atmosphere was a bit sharp with cleaning fluids.

There sat Ker. The midget Psychlo looked a bit funny and depressed, lost in the immensity of the chair back of the vast square yardage of the desk.

“Good afternoon, Your Planetship,” caroled Terl.

“Would you close the door, please?” said Ker faintly.

Terl took a probe out from under his arm and waved it about to make sure the place hadn’t been bugged overnight. He was almost careless about it. He felt free!

“I’m not very popular,” said Ker. “People haven’t been very polite to me so far. They wonder why Numph appointed me his deputy. I wonder myself. I’m an operations officer, not an administrator. And now all of a sudden I’m head of the planet.”

Terl, with a wonderful smile on his mouthbones, stepped closer. “Now what I’m going to tell you, Ker, I will deny emphatically I ever said, and there is no record and you’ll forget this conversation.”

Ker was instantly alert. As a hardened criminal he knew better than to trust security chiefs. Ker wriggled in the chair that was too big for him.

“Numph,” said Terl, “didn’t appoint you.”

Ker got very alert!

“I did,” said Terl. “And as long as you do exactly what I tell you to do, without ever telling anyone I told you to do it, you will be fine. More than fine. Wonderful!”

“They’ll just send in a new Planet Head on Day 92,” said Ker. “That’s only a couple of months off. And he’ll find out if I’ve done anything wrong . . . yes, and he may find out I’m not welcome in certain universes.”

“No, Ker. I don’t think you’ll be replaced. In fact, I am very, very certain you will not be. You’re good for this post for years.”

Ker was wary and puzzled, but Terl seemed so confident that he listened cautiously.

Terl opened an envelope and fanned out the evidence he had gathered on Numph. Ker looked at it with slowly widening eyes.

“A hundred-million-credit-a-year swindle,” said Terl. “Of which Numph got half. You’re not only here for years, but you’ll be rich enough when you do go home to buy your record clean and live in luxury.”

The Psychlo midget studied it. It was a little hard to grasp at first. Nipe, Numph’s nephew, was crediting full pay to the employees of this planet, but was in fact diverting half the pay and all the bonuses into private accounts for himself and Numph. He finally got that. All he had to do was to continue to deny bonuses and pay only half-pay.

“Why are you doing this?” said Ker. “Do you get a slice of this? Is that it?”

“Oh, no. I don’t even want a quarter of a credit of it. It’s all yours. But, of course, I am really doing it because I am your friend. Haven’t I always protected you?”

“You’ve got enough blackmail on me already to get me vaporized,” said Ker. “Why this, too?”

“Now, Ker,” said Terl reprovingly. Then he decided it was time to level. “I want you to issue any order I tell you to, and to give me an order in six months to go home.”

“That’s fine,” said Ker. “I can even issue orders not to countermand any orders you issue. But I still don’t see that I won’t be relieved in two months.”

Terl got down to business. “This is the code Numph used. Vehicles-in-use numbers. You won’t be relieved. Nipe, his nephew, has influence. This is your first coded message to Nipe.” He put it on the desk, reminding himself to destroy his own handwritten version as soon as Ker had it encoded in his.

The message said: “Numph assassinated by escaped criminal. New situation created. He appointed me especially to carry on. Arrangements are as always. Deposit his share to my numbered account Galaxy Trust Company. Condolences. Happy future association. Ker.”

“I don’t have a numbered account,” said Ker.

“You will, you will. I have all the papers for you and they will go out in the next transshipment. Foolproof.”

Ker looked back at the message. For the first time since the murders he began to smile. He sat back, seeming to get bigger. Suddenly he reached forward and slapped paws with Terl, symbolizing full-hearted agreement.

When Terl left him, Ker had swelled up so much he was practically filling the chair.

The only reservation Terl had, as he swept on to his next scheduled action, was that the dimwitted little midget might overreach himself with pomposity and make some clownish mistake. But he’d keep an eye on him. He’d keep a close eye on him. And who cared what happened to Ker once Terl was off this planet!

Any potential alliance Jonnie might have had with Ker was wholly and totally severed.

5

Terl’s next actions were carefully observed by keen Scottish eyes in the hills.

Late the previous afternoon, Terl had gone tearing off in an executive tank at high speed. He had headed toward the ancient city to the north and entered it.

About noon he left the ruins there and came roaring down the remains of the overgrown highway to the Academy.

Terl got out of the tank, faceplate of the breathe-mask glinting in the sun, and strode in a free and relaxed fashion in the direction of the sentry who came forward.

There was very little at the Academy now; a housekeeping unit and three Scot sentries, usually light-duty invalids recovering from some mishap.

This one had his arm in splints and in a sling. “What can I do for you, sir?” said the sentry in acceptable Psychlo.

Terl looked around. No vehicles left here—no, there was the tail of a small passenger plane. Must have them all up at the mine. Probably even running out of them.

He looked at the sentry. Probably running out of personnel, too, if Terl knew anything about the dangers of mining. Well, no matter. There were still some of them left alive.

He was wondering how to communicate with this animal. It had not registered on him that he had been addressed in Psychlo, simply because he didn’t believe it. Animals were stupid.

Terl made gestures with his paws, indicating the height and beard of the head animal. He went through a pantomime of looking around, sweeping his arm toward himself and pointing at the spot beside him. Very difficult to get anything across to an animal.

“You probably mean Jonnie,” said the sentry in Psychlo.

Terl nodded absently and wandered off. He’d probably have to wait until they flew up to the mine and brought him back, but that was quite all right.

He realized with an expansive good feeling that he now had lots of time; but more than that, he had freedom. He could go where he pleased and do what he pleased. He flexed his arms and wandered off. It might be an accursed planet but he had space now. It was as though invisible walls had been moved off him and miles away.

Some horses were grazing in a nearby park. Terl, to pass the time, practiced drawing his belt gun and firing. One by one he broke their legs. The resulting screaming of the agonized mounts was quite satisfactory. He was just as fast on the draw as ever, just as accurate. At two hundred yards, even! A black horse. Four draws, four fires. The horse was a skidding cloud of snow. What a caterwaul! Delicious.

Jonnie’s voice behind him was a bit hard to hear in the racket but it didn’t surprise Terl. He turned easily, mouthbones wreathed in a smile behind the faceplate.

“Want to try?” said Terl, pretending to hand over the gun.

Jonnie reached for it. Terl laughed an enormous laugh and put it back in his belt.

Jonnie had long since been waiting for Terl: from the moment Terl had started on this route from the city, he had known Terl would call here and he had flown down from the mine. It had seemed better not to let Terl know he was under observation and he had intended to delay a bit longer. But the screaming of the tortured horses had sickened him.

This was a much-changed Terl, very like his old self.

“Let’s walk,” said Terl.

With a signal of the hand that Terl did not see, an angry Jonnie sent a Scot to slit the throats of the tortured, maimed horses and put them out of their misery. He steered Terl around the corner of a building to block his view of the action.

“Well, animal,” said Terl. “I see you are getting along just fine. I suppose you are trying for a second pocket.”

“Yes,” said Jonnie, controlling his anger, “we don’t have quite enough gold yet.” That was an understatement. All the gold they had he was carrying in a bag right this minute.

“Fine, fine,” said Terl. “Need any equipment? Any supplies? Just say the word. Got a list with you?” Jonnie didn’t. “No, well all you have to do is put a list in those bundles you keep leaving outside the cage and I’ll just have them run right over to you. Label it ‘training supplies,’ of course.”

“Fine,” said Jonnie.

“And if you want to talk to me, just flash a light through the glass at my quarters, three short flashes and I’ll come out and we can talk. Right?”

Jonnie said that was fine. There were some mining points that came up every now and then.

“Well, you just ask the right party,” said Terl, patting himself on the chest. “What I don’t know about mining has never been written up!” He laughed loudly.

Indeed this was a different Terl, thought Jonnie. Something had taken the pressure off him.

They were still out in a field and hidden from view by a knoll.

“Now to business,” said Terl. “On Day 89 you are to deliver my gold to this building in the old city up there.” He took a picture out of his pocket and showed it to Jonnie.

It said on the building: United States Mint. Jonnie started to take it but Terl pulled it back and showed him three other views: the street, the building from two sides.

“Day 89,” said Terl. “Two hours after sunset. Don’t be seen. There’s a room I’ve fixed up. Put it in there.”

Jonnie studied the views. Obviously Terl was not going to give him physical possession of them. There were some mounds he knew were old cars, and back of the building was a bigger mound, probably a truck. The doors of the place were sound and closed, but undoubtedly Terl had them unlocked.

“Have you got a flatbed ground truck?” asked Terl. “No? I’ll give you one.” He became impressive, commanding. “Now listen carefully: you and two other animals, no more, are to arrive at that exact time. You, personally. Tell the others you won’t return until Day 93 and you’ll bring them their pay. From Day 89 to 93, I have some other things for you to do. Understand? You personally and two animals, no more; the rest stay at the mine. Right?”

Jonnie said that was understood. They were standing well screened from any view behind some bushes. “Do you want to see a sample of what was hauled up?”

Yes, Terl certainly did. So Jonnie threw down a piece of heavy cloth and spilled wire gold onto it. It glowed softly in the sunlight.

Terl glanced up to be sure there was no overhead surveillance and then hunkered down. He fondled the nets of gold, some of the quartz still sticking to it. He spent some time at it and then stood up with a paw signal to put it away. Jonnie did so. Carefully. It was all they had.

Gazing at the bag, Terl let out a long sigh into his breathe-mask. “Beautiful,” he said. “Beautiful.”

He came out of it. “So on Day 89, I get a ton of gold, right?” He patted his pocket where the remote control lay. “And then on Day 93 you get your payoff!”

“Why the delay?” said Jonnie. “That’s four days.”

“Oh, you’ve got a few things to do,” said Terl. “But never fear, animal. Come Day 93, you will be paid off. With interest. Compounded. I promise you very faithfully!” He laughed a huge guffaw into his mask, and Jonnie knew that Terl might be feeling high today but he was not entirely sane.

“You’ll get everything that’s coming to you, animal!” said Terl. “Let’s walk back to the car.”

Never in his whole life had Terl felt so good. He recalled from the Scotland trip how eager they were for pay. This animal was going to get paid on Day 89! Then he could kill the females. With no fear of “psychic powers.” Delicious!

“Goodbye, animal,” he said, and drove off in great spirits.

6

The next weeks were filled with tension. They were driving along the vein in hopes of a second pocket but as yet saw only white quartz, no gold. And without gold, nothing else was going to work.

The incident of the horse herd caused an uproar among them. They had trained those horses and they had become pets, left at the Academy where there was grazing, waiting for better days. The Scots were outraged, not only because of the loss, but because of the sickening way it had been done. It brought home to all of them the nature of the enemy. Were all Psychlos like that? Yes, unfortunately. Lookouts had spotted other crippled animals around the compound. Didn’t this put the girls in great danger? Yes, but one had to grit one’s teeth and make sure their plan came off on schedule. By all that was holy, they mustn’t muff a single thing! It was like playing a violent kind of chess with maniacs.

In other areas than the gold they were making progress.

Angus had made keys to everything in sight. It was very risky: heat-shielded bodies, silent feet in the snow of night, impressions in wax, dusted-over tracks. There was double jeopardy in this, for any discovery might not only cost the man his life but also alert the Psychlos that something was intended.

They had a good break in studying the old battle of a thousand years ago. The records were all in order now, all satellite overviews of it in sequence.

Jonnie and Doctor MacDermott had been going over them, looking for something that might help. There were numerous reports on the battle planes in that one-sided struggle.

An oddity was that a Psychlo battle plane had dive-bombed a tank in downtown Denver, but there was no tank detailed to downtown Denver according to U.S. Army statements on it. This attracted Jonnie’s attention and led him to discover a second report on the same plane.

After bombing the tank that the report said was not there, the battle plane took off at high speed to the northwest and was sighted colliding with a snow-covered mountainside. It didn’t explode. The spotting gave the exact position.

They looked it up on their maps. It was only about three hundred miles to the north of them.

Dunneldeen verified it with an overfly and metal detector, and the battle plane was still there, buried—all but a tip of its tail—in perpetual snows.

Using two flying ore platforms, they dug it out and airlifted it at night to avoid detection to the old base, and there in the heliport, subjected it to minute study.

The battle plane was unserviceable, but it contained a host of information that could not be gained by a stealthy scout to the compound. The two Psychlo pilots had been killed on impact, but their equipment, though decayed, was intact.

They went over every detail of the breathe-masks. They found there was a compartment that contained jet-driven backpacks as a form of parachute in case of necessary bailout. The security belts were no different from those used in the mine vehicles. The pilots also wore belt guns.

The controls of the plane were identical to the passenger mining ships. The only additions were the gun triggers and switches for a magnetic “grappler.”

Examining the skids on which the plane stood, they found, indeed, that they were electromagnetic. The plane could be fixed with this to any metal surface and obviated the necessity of tying it down.

They also located the key slots and determined the type of keys.

They cleaned it up as best they could and used it for drilling their pilots.

The dead, mummified Psychlos were dissected by the parson to ascertain where their vital organs were located. Their hearts were in back of their belt buckles and their lungs were high in their shoulders. Their brains were very low in the back of the head and the rest of the head was bone. The parson then buried them with proper solemnity.

They were busy on many projects. They built a large-scale model of the compound in the huge loft of the Empire Dauntless Mining building and drilled every team member.

They marked out approximate distances in a meadow—without betraying anything to a drone—and timed everything: how fast did one have to go to get from this place to that, what were the starting times from zero time in order to converge simultaneously. There was much information they did not have and could not get, so they made up for it with flexibility.

A problem they had to solve was replacing the horses. By rounding up and training wild ones, and working very fast, a small group was able to do this.

They had all become excellent marksmen with the assault rifles and bazookas.

With the relentless drilling by Robert the Fox, that past master of raids, they were really getting someplace.

“If we miss,” Robert the Fox repeatedly told them, “and slip up on the tiniest detail, those plains out there will once again be crawling with transshipped Psychlo tanks and the sky studded with battle planes. The home planet of the Psychlos would retaliate with ferocity. We would have no course open save to withdraw into the old military base and probably perish of asphyxiation when they resort to gas. We have one thin chance. We must not miss in any tiniest detail. Let’s go through it all again.”

A strike force of only threescore men taking on the whole Psychlo empire? They would harden their determination and go through the drill again. And again and again.

But they did not yet have the vital, crucial chip: the gold.

7

They labored in the mine twenty-four hours a day with three shifts. Inward further and further they drove along the barren white quartz vein.

And then on Day 60 the vein faulted. Some ancient cataclysm had shifted it up or down, to the right or left. Suddenly there was just country rock before them. No more vein.

The possibility that they would lose it had not been missing from their calculations. For weeks now they had been sending out scouts to locate any stored gold within their range of recovery.

They had been given hope by Jonnie’s earliest discovery of a gold coin in a bank vault in Denver. But most of the coins left were just curiosities, worthless souvenirs: they were silver-plated copper. Only five more gold coins were in that vault, and these few ounces were a long way from making up a ton of gold.

A few bits from what must have been jewelry shops added another pitiful two ounces.

Mining company officials at old mines through the mountains had no gold in their vaults, though they found plenty of receipts: the receipts all said Shipped (so many) ounces to the U.S. Mint, Denver or Shipped (such and such) poundage of concentrate to the smelter.

In a perilous journey in a plane, carrying heavy supplies of fuel in reserve, Dunneldeen, a copilot and a gunner, flying by night to escape drone detection, went all the way to the eastern coast to a place once called New York. They found the buildings mostly knocked down but some gold vaults, tunneled into and empty.

They also visited a place the historian had found called Fort Knox, but it was just a gutted ruin.

Dunneldeen had accumulated a remarkable fund of information and picto-recorder shots: bridges gone, tumbled rubble, wild game, wild cattle and varmints abundant, no trace of people, and they had had some hair-raising experiences.

But they got no gold.

They had to come to the conclusion that the Psychlos, as much as a thousand years ago, had thoroughly gutted this planet of gold. They must have even taken it from corpses in the streets, rings from fingers and fillings from teeth. Possibly this, along with the Psychlo sport of hunting humans on days off, accounted for the thoroughness of population wipeout. There was evidence that in the early days of conquest they had even massacred people just for their rings and fillings. They began to understand Terl a little better in his dangerous enterprise to possess the yellow metal for himself. To the humans, the metal meant very little: they had no experience of using it in trade; it was pretty and didn’t tarnish and was easily pounded into shape, but stainless steel had a lot more utility. Their own ideas of trade and thrift had to do with useful items that were real wealth.

None of this got them any closer to getting a ton of gold. They frantically test-drilled for the lost vein.

On Day 70, they found the vein again. It had been shifted by some past upheaval 231 feet to the north and only thirty feet from the surface.

They wiped off their sweating faces, the droplets tending to freeze in the bitter winter winds of these altitudes, made a new level area for equipment and a new shaft, and began to drift again along the white quartz. The vein had thinned down to about three feet in width. They drove on, filling the dark air of the drift with white chips and blast fumes.

They had scouted out Denver thoroughly. Typically, Terl had not intended to work in the U.S. Mint to refine his gold; he had set up a place in the basement of the remains of a smelter a few minutes’ drive away. He was just using the U.S. Mint as a receipt point.

But all the gold invoices they found in the mines said U.S. Mint, and it seemed to Jonnie that where so much gold was funneled in, there might be further traces there, in case they missed at the lode. Also this tank that didn’t exist to the U.S. military might have been guarding the Mint.

In a swift foray, he and Dunneldeen swooped down to the U.S. Mint. They had made very sure there were no ground cars or planes as the afternoon faded. They landed in a park in the cover of giant trees and sped on silent feet to the Mint.

The place was still. It had been scouted before, but once more they went over it just in case the Psychlos had missed a vault. Inside they found nothing.

They lingered outside in the darkness. Dunneldeen amused himself by prying into the mounds that had once been cars, wondering what they looked like in the days when they could run. Jonnie was thinking about the views Terl had shown him. He went around to the back and played a mine lamp on the ground so it would reflect a dim light up.

Shortly, he was looking at the largest mound. It came to him that this must be the tank the battle plane had destroyed. The nonexistent tank.

He lifted some turf—blown sand and grass had overlaid it. He cut the turf very carefully so it could be laid back and leave no sign of disturbance. The thing wasn’t an ordinary car. It was so thickly built that it had endured the rust of time. The metal was twisted where it had burned out. He had never seen anything like this. It had a slot one might fire out of, but that would be its closest resemblance to a tank. The window frames had bars over them, a bit like a cage. What was this thing? He pried a section of metal aside with a mine crowbar and got inside. The interior had been blackened by fire and floor plates had warped. He pried up a floor plate.

Half a minute later, a smiling Jonnie was making a bird call and beckoning for Dunneldeen. He took the Scot inside.

As one might piece together, when the Psychlo attack came, the U.S. Mint had sought to evacuate its vaults.

GOLD! How much?

In extremely heavy ingots, there it had lain neatly for a thousand years. Overlooked, for everyone thought it was a tank.

They estimated its weight with excited heftings. And then their excitement dimmed.

“It’s less than a tenth of a ton,” said Dunneldeen. “Would Terl be satisfied with that?”

Jonnie didn’t think so. In fact he knew Terl wouldn’t. It was also far less than suited their own project.

“A tenth of a loaf is better than none,” said Dunneldeen.

They packed the two hundred pounds of gold in the plane and put the “tank” back together and scattered snow on it and around it to cover tracks.

They now had about three hundred pounds in gold.

They needed a ton.

It was enough to make one take up alchemy, the mythical conversion of lead to gold, said the historian when they returned. And in fact he spent hours that night fruitlessly studying just that.

The parson made a visit to Jonnie’s village to prepare the people for the possibility of withdrawal into the old base. He told Jonnie his Aunt Ellen sent her love and for him to be very careful in the wild places he went. Jonnie detected the parson was sweet on Aunt Ellen and privately wished him luck.

They felt bad they couldn’t warn other peoples on this planet.

If they failed, man might indeed become extinct.

8

The shift that went on duty at the end of Day 86 began like any other shift. The vein had been narrowing lately—pinching out. They tried not to be hopeful, but shift ends, when they had not found the pocket yet, were always a bitter disappointment.

Dunneldeen, recovered from the cave-in, was operating a chattering spade bit, sweat streaming off him in the closed, hot confines of the drift. He had a sudden illusion that a drop of sweat had turned color as it dropped into his eye. He switched off the spade bit to clear his vision. He looked again in front of him through the swirling smoke and white dust. The illusion was still there.

But it wasn’t an illusion!

A single round spot of glowing yellow marked the shining white vein.

He put the spade bit against it and turned it on. The chattering edge bit further. He shut it off and walked closer to the vein.

He stood stock-still and then let out a blasting whistle to stop the shift.

He pointed. And then bedlam broke loose!

It was gold!

They had finally hit the second pocket!

The shift abruptly left off shouting and every bit and drill they had down there began to cut into the vein.

The wire gold began to blossom against the white.

An excited call went to the duty watch in town, and in a handful of minutes they had the third shift helping them.

The town went wild.

Every Scot and even two of the old widows helped form a human bucket line out of the mine; weighing, sacking, and loading bag after bag of mixed wire gold and quartz. To the devil with the odd bits of rock. The gold was like twisted springs and small cages of gleaming yellow.

Before sunset on Day 88 they had the whole pocket out.

Sixteen hundred forty-seven pounds, it weighed out, subtracting the rock.

Adding to that the 306 pounds they already had, it made one 1953 pounds.

It was short of a ton but it would have to do.

The project was on its way!

They began to oil their assault rifles.

The parson prayed long and earnestly for their success. There were no parallels for odds such as these.

9

Terl waited, trying to be casual, in front of the U.S. Mint. It was two hours after sunset on Day 89. It was good and dark; there would be no moon these next three nights.

The weather on this cursed planet was on the edge of spring. There had already been a warm day or two. All the snow was gone. It was reasonably warm tonight and he had been prepared to wait. Animals were pretty stupid about time.

He was leaning against a flatbed truck he had driven in from the base. It was a shabby relic, not even on the inventory. It wouldn’t be missed. He had prepared it carefully.

But, right on time, there were the animals.

With only a pinpoint of light, pointed at the ground, their vehicle rolled up and stopped a few feet from Terl.

It was heavily laden. So they had kept their part of the bargain after all. Yes, animals certainly were stupid.

There were three man-things in the cab. But Terl couldn’t restrain his eagerness. He walked over to the flatbed and began to poke talons and a light into the sacks. Wire gold! Unrefined, unmelted, a bit of the white quartz clinging . . . no, here were some melted chunks.

He remembered himself and stood back and played a radiation detector on the sacks. Clean.

He estimated the load by a practiced glance at the pistons that supported the body over the driving mechanism. Allowing for the slight weight of the man-things—maybe four hundred pounds—and for the debris, he must have about nineteen hundred pounds here. Recent trade papers told him that gold in its scarcity at home had soared to 8,321 Galactic credits an ounce. This load was worth about . . . he was very good at figures in his head . . . about C189,718,800.00. Several dozen fortunes!

Wealth and power!

He felt very expansive.

The animals hadn’t gotten out of the cab. Terl went to the side of it and flashed a subdued light into it. These fellows all had black beards!

Actually, it was Dunneldeen, Dwight and another Scot.

Terl went through a pantomime seeking to ask where the animal Jonnie was.

The pantomime might or might not have been comprehensible, but Dwight, who spoke Psychlo, knew exactly what was meant. Purposely speaking in broken Psychlo, Dwight said, “Jonnie not can come. Him have accident. Him hurt foot. He say we come. Much apology.”

Terl was a bit taken aback by the information. It upset his planning. But yes, in the recon drone pictures this afternoon he had noticed an overturned blade scraper at the site and had seen no sign of the blond-bearded Jonnie, who for months had always been visible. Well, no matter. It didn’t upset much. It just delayed getting rid of the females. A hurt foot wouldn’t stop that animal’s “psychic powers” if he touched the females ahead of time. And if aroused, they could cause mischief. No mischief that he, Terl, couldn’t handle.

“We help transfer sacks to other truck,” said Dwight.

Terl had never intended that. “No,” he said, making wide explicit motions—rather hard to see in the dark—“we just swap trucks. You get it? I keep your truck. You take this truck.”

The three Scots piled out of the huge cab of the Psychlo truck they had brought and got into Terl’s.

Dunneldeen took the controls. He started the motors and made a wide sweep in the street, turning back the way they had come.

Terl stood with a waiting smile upon his mouthbones.

The truck went up to the corner and turned into a side street, out of sight of Terl.

Dunneldeen hastily punched in the numbers to keep it going down the slope.

He looked sideways to make sure Dwight and the other Scot had the door open.

“Go!” he barked.

The other two dove out the door.

Dunneldeen shot his own door open and in a rolled ball hit the soft turf of the street.

He glanced back. The other two were up and running for cover, a pair of darker blurs in the dark.

He yanked a heat-detector shield out of his belt and began to run to an alley. He made it.

The flatbed went on down the street for another hundred yards.

It exploded with a battering, violent concussion that blew in the buildings on both sides of the street.

Back at the gold-laden flatbed, Terl chuckled. He could hear the patter of pieces beginning to hit as they returned to earth for blocks around. There was a roaring sigh as some buildings collapsed. He was pleased. He would have been more pleased if the animal had been in it. He didn’t have to go and look. He wouldn’t have found anything anyway. The distance-fused demolition charge had been placed under the cab seats.

Terl got in the laden truck and drove to the smelter he had rigged.

He had done number five of seven alternate, possible actions in booby-trapping and sending the truck back. It had been dicey precalculating the options.

The teams in antiheat capes drew back from the surrounding buildings. They collected Dunneldeen and the other two and went off for stage two. Would they be this fortunate next time? Dicey indeed outguessing a mad Psychlo.

10

The workroom in the ancient smelter had been all set up by Terl. The windows had been shuttered and the doors made snug. The only piece of equipment of the original man-setup that he was using was the huge metal cauldron in the middle of the floor, and this too he had reworked, surrounding it with Psychlo speed heaters.

Tools, molds and molecular sprays were all laid out.

The marking equipment was that of the morgue down at the compound.

Terl parked the flatbed in front of the unlighted door and with practically no effort at all carried in ore sacks six or eight at a time and emptied them into the cauldron.

He hid the flatbed, came in and barred the door, and checked to see that all the shutters were in place. He did not notice a newly drilled hole in one. He turned on the portable lights.

With practiced ease he darted the point of a probe around the interior to make sure there were no bugs or button cameras. Satisfied, he laid the equipment aside.

The instant it clattered to the bench, an unseen hand unfastened an ancient ventilator door and placed two button cameras in advantageous positions. The ventilator door, well oiled, was shut again. A bit of dust, dislodged in the action, drifted down across a lamp beam.

Terl looked up. Rats, he thought. Always rats in these buildings.

He turned on the speed heaters of the cauldron and the wire gold and lumps began to settle down and shrink. Bubbles began to form. One had to be careful not to overheat gold; it went into gaseous form and much could be lost in vapors. The roof beams of this old smelter must be saturated in gold gas that had recondensed. He watched the thermometers carefully.

The yellow orange content of the cauldron went liquid and he turned the heaters to “maintain.”

The molds were all laid out. They were for coffin lids ordinarily used in manufacture, for coffins were a local product, made in the shops of the compound.

Terl held a huge ladle in mittened paws and began to transfer liquid gold into the first lid mold.

Two hundred pounds of gold per coffin. Ten coffin lids. He worked fast and expertly, taking care to spill none. The hiss of the molten metal striking the molds was pleasant to his earbones.

How easy all this was! The company insisted on lead coffins. Now and then an employee died in a radiation accident on some far planet, and after some messy experiences such as coffins falling apart in transshipment or creating minor accidents with radiation, the company, fifty or sixty thousand years ago, had laid down exact rules.

Lead was a glut on the market on Psychlo. They had lots of that. They also had plenty of iron and copper and chrome. What were scarce were gold, bauxite, molybdenum and several other metals. And what was absent, thank the evil gods, was uranium and all its family of ores. So the coffins were always made of lead, stiffened up with an alloy or two such as bismuth.

He only had to make lids. There were stacks and stacks of coffins in the morgue. One of the reasons he had to be secretive was that it would look a bit silly for him to be making more coffins and bringing them in.

Presently he had nine lid molds full. It was a bit tricky on the tenth. The cauldron was down to the bottom and a residue of rock was mixed in the dregs.

He had to be speedy with all this, for it had to be done before dawn. He speed-chilled the dregs and dumped in a demijohn of acid to dissolve the rock and sediment left. Then he speed-warmed it again. The clouds of boiling acid looked good to him. He was in a breathe-mask, so who cared. He spooned the dissolved dregs out and reheated the gold.

By scraping very carefully, he was able to get the last lid fairly full. He made up the weight with a bit of melted lead.

While the lid molds cooled, he cleaned up the cauldron and ladle and made sure there were no splatters on the floor.

The lids weren’t cooling fast enough and he put a portable fan to them. He gingerly tapped one. Good!

With care he tapped the lids out of the molds and laid them on a bench. He got out a molecular spray and fed a lead-bismuth rod into it and began to paint the gold with a lead-bismuth covering. About seven lead-bismuth rods later he had ten leadlike coffin lids.

He took off his mittens and gathered up the marking equipment that usually stayed in the morgue. He pulled a list from his pocket.

With great neatness, he marked ten names, company worker serial numbers, and dates of death on the lids.

It had taken some trouble getting ten bodies. There were the three sentries blown up by the exploding gun. There was Numph. There was Jayed, blast him. But a mine safety program being run over in medical had kept casualties down from normal, and there had been only three mine deaths since the last semiannual firing. This left Terl two bodies short.

One he had acquired by casually dropping a blasting cap into a shot hole before they tamped in the explosive. He had thought to get two or three with this but he only got the explosives expert.

The other one had been rather involved. He had loosened the steering bar of a tri-wheeler. The things were quite high-speed and ran around lots of obstacles. But he had had to wait three boring days until it finally spilled and killed the admin personnel riding it.

So he had his ten names.

He punched them into the soft metal of the lids with the marker. He inspected them. Two showed gold through and that would not do. He got out his molecular spray and sprayed lead-bismuth over them. Fine.

He made a test with a claw point. The covering didn’t scratch. It would probably also stand up to the handling of fork trucks.

He then took a marker and made a small X, hard to see unless you looked for it, on the lower left-hand corner of each lid.

Time was getting on. He rapidly scooped up his equipment and disengaged the speed heater from the cauldron. He looked around. He had everything.

He turned out the lights, pulled the truck in front of the door, and loaded two or three lids at a time. He dumped the equipment on it.

He went back in, took a bag of dust and scattered it around the room, flashed his lamp about one more time to make sure, closed the doors, and happily drove off.

In the smelter, the ventilator opened and the button cameras were retrieved with a quick hand. The hole in the shutter was repaired.

Terl drove rapidly to the compound. It was now very late but he had, as of recent weeks, made a practice of driving about the compound as though doing rounds and the sound of the motor would alert no one.

It was very dark.

He stopped at the morgue. Without lights he carried the ten lids inside. Then he drove the truck to the nearby scrap dump and dug the equipment into and under another pile of scrap.

He walked back to the morgue, closed the door, and turned on the lights. He probed the place for bugs.

He did not notice a small hole drilled through the thick wall or the button camera that appeared there right after his probe.

Terl lined up ten coffins from the stacks of empties. He took off their lids and dumped them back of the stack. He moved the ten around so they would be in position to be picked up by the forklifts on Day 92.

From the shelves he yanked down the ten bodies and dumped them with thuds into the coffins.

Jayed’s was the last one. “Jayed, you silly crunch, what a crap lousy I.B.I. agent you were. It ain’t smart, Jayed, to come in here worrying your betters. And what did you get for it?” Terl picked up the lid he’d made, checked the name. “A coffin and a grave burying you under the phony name of Snit.”

The glazed eyes seemed to regard him reproachfully.

“No, Jayed,” said Terl. “It will do no good to argue. None at all. Neither your murder, nor that of Numph, will ever be traced to me. Goodbye, Jayed!” He slammed the coffin lid down on Jayed.

He covered the rest of the coffins with his lids. He checked the small Xs.

He took a tool that cold-bonded metal and sealed the lids down to the coffins. He put the tool on the shelf. He took the name-marking tool out of his pocket and put it where it belonged.

He looked around and stood straighter. So far all was perfect.

And he was all ready, a whole day early for the semiannual firing. He reached for the light.

He did not hear the whisper against stone as the button camera was withdrawn from the hole or the squish of cement as the hole was blocked.

Terl opened the door. It was getting dimly light.

He walked across the open space, the firing platform, and up the hill to his quarters.

Behind him at the morgue, two caped figures slipped away into the ravine.

Four hours later on this Day 91, Jonnie, Robert the Fox, the council and team members concerned went over and over the picto-recorder pictures. They must not miss the tiniest possibility or the largest option. They could not afford to miss. The fate, not just of themselves, but of galaxies depended upon making no mistakes.