Prepare then a feast, and none of the least,

two of them, she was wrestled into the lift. She struggled, screaming imprecations and threats, and although she heard Trag protesting as sternly as he could, she was put in padded restraints. The ignominy of such a humiliating expedient combined with fear, disappointment, and her recent physical ordeal sent Killashandra into a trembling posture of aggrieved and contained fury. By the time they reached the shuttle transport to the Regulus transfer moon, she had exhausted her scant store of energy and crouched in the seat, sullen and silent, too proud to ask for her release from the restraints. She let Trag and the medic lead her where they would, and didnt protest when they undressed her for immersion in a radiant fluid tank. Legitimate protest and recourse denied her, she submitted to everything then, despairing and listless. Over and over she reviewed her moments in the witness chair, when her body, the body which had loved and been loved so by Lars, had betrayed them both with false testimony. She was appalled at that treachery, and obsessed by the horrifying guilt that she, herself, her anxieties and idiotic presentiments, had condemned Lars on the one count which had not been dismissed by the Court. She could never forgive herself. Somehow, sometime, she would be able to face Lars, and beg his forgiveness. That she promised herself. All the way back to Ballybran, she said not a single word to anyone, nodding or shaking her head in answer to the few questions that were put directly to her by officials. Trag supervised her meals, immersed her in radiant fluid whenever such facilities were available, and remained by her side during her wakeful hours. If he resented her silence or interpreted it as an accusation, he gave no indication of regret, remorse, or penitence. She was too immersed in her obsession with the Outrageous circumstance of Larss betrayal to try to explain the complexities of her depression. By the time she and Trag had completed the long journey to Ballybrans surface, Killashandra was completely restored to physical health. She paused only long enough in her quarters to check, as she had begun to do toward the end of the trip, with galactic updates. There was no further word on the Optherian situation beyond the original bulletin announcing the arrival of Revision troops on the planet to correct legislative anomalies. She refused to consider what that statement might mean for Lars. Dumping her carisak, she changed into a shipsuit. Then she headed for the Fishermans bailiwick and, smallest highest quality digital camera with a voice grown gruff from disuse, demanded her sonic cutter. While waiting for him to retrieve it from storage, she checked with Meterology and, with a twinge of satisfaction, learned that the forecast predicted a settled period of weather for the next nine days. She backed her sled out of its rack herself, though she could see the wild protesting signals of the duty officer trying to abort her precipitous departure. As soon as she was clear of the Hangar, she poured on the power and, in an undeviating line, fled for the Ranges. It was all part of the miserable web of ironic coincidence that she found black crystal again in the deep, sunless ravine in which she had hoped to bury herself and her grief for the reason and manner of her parting with Lars Dahl. EPILOGUE Stolidly Killashandra watched, arms folded across her breasts, as Enthor reverently unpacked the nine black crystal shafts. Interstellar, at the least, Killashandra, he said, blinking his eyes back to normal vision as he stepped back to sigh over the big crystals. And this is all from that vein you struck last year? Killashandra nodded. Not much moved her to words these days. Working the new claim, she had quickly recouped her losses on the Optherian contract; Heptite rules and regs had required her to part with a percentage of that fee to Trag. She accepted that as passively as she had accepted everything since that day in Court on Regulus. Not even Rimbol had been able to penetrate her apathy, though he and Antona continued their attempts. Lanzecki had spoken pleasantly to her after her first return from the Ranges, complimented her on the new black crystal vein but their early relationship could never have been revived even if Lanzecki had persisted. She didnt see him. She saw no one but Lars, a laughing Lars, garland-wreathed, his blue eyes gleaming, teeth white in his tanned face, his bronzed body poised on the deck of the Pearl Fisher. She woke sometimes, sure she felt his hand on her hip, heard his voice in the whisper of the wind in the deep ravine, or in the tenor of warming crystal at noon, when the sun finally touched the cliff. She made two attempts to succumb to crystal thrall but each time the symbiont had somehow pulled her back. Not even that enchantment was powerful enough to break through her emotions, obsessed as she was by the guilty betrayal of her body in the witness chair on Regulus. She had kept informed of the situation

So for a good old-gentlemanly vice,

side of the squarethe side perched precariously on the cliff-topand the south side were made up of fairly modern buildings of whitewashed stone and Parian granite, huddled together in the invariable fashion of houses in these island towns, fiat-roofed to catch as much as possible of the winter rains. But the east side of the square, where they were, was made up of antiquated timber and turf houses, of the kind much more often found in remote mountain vifiages. The beaten earth floor beneath his feet was hummocky, uneven, and the previous occupants had used one corner of itobviouslyfor a variety of purposes, not least as a refuse dump. The ceiling was of roughhewn, blackened beams, more or less covered with planks, these in turn being covered with a thick layer of trodden earth: from previous experience of such houses in the White Mountains, Mallory knew that the roof would leak like a sieve whenever the rain came on. Across one end of the room was a solid ledge some thirty inches high, a ledge that served, after the fashion of similar structures in Eskimo igloos, as bed, table or settee as the occasion demanded. The room was completely bare of furniture. Mallory started as someone touched him on the shoulder and turned round. Miller was behind him, munching away steadily, the remains of a bottle of wine in his hand. "Better get some chow, boss," he advised. "I'll take a gander through this hole from time to time." "Right you are, Dusty. Thanks." Mallory moved gingerly towards the back of the roomit was almost pitch dark inside and they dared not risk a lightand felt his way till he brought up against the ledge. The tireless Andrea had gone through their provisions and prepared a meal of sortsdried figs, honey, cheese, garlic sausages and pounded roast chestnuts. A horrible mixture, Mallory thought, but the best Andrea could do: besides he was too hungry, ravenously so, to worry about such niceties as the pleasing of his palate. And by the time he had washed it down with some of the local wine that Louki and Panayis bad provided the previous day, the sweetly-resinous rawness of the drink had obliterated every other taste. Carefully, shielding the match with his hand, Mallory lit a cigarette and began to explain for the first time his plan for entering the fortress. He did not have to bother lowering his voicea couple of looms in the next house, one of the few occupied ones left on that side of the square, clacked incessantly throughout the evening. Mallory had a shrewd suspicion that this was more of canon powershot 7.1mp digital camera silver Louki's doing, although it was difficult to see how he could have got word through to any of his friends. But Mallory was content to accept the situation as it was, to concentrate on making sure that the others understood his insttuctions. Apparently they did, for there were no questions. For a few minutes the talk became general, the usually taciturn Casey Brown having the most to say, complaining bitterly about the food, the drink, his injured leg and the hardness of the bench where he wouldn't be able to sleep a wink all night long. Mallory grinned to himself but said nothing; Casey Brown was definitely on the mend. "I reckon we've talked enough, gentlemen." Mallory slid off the bench and stretched himself. God, he was tired! "Our first and last chance to get a decent night's sleep. Two hour watchesI'll take the first." "By yourself?" It was Miller caffing softly from the other end of the room. "Don't you think we should share watches, boss? One for the front, one for the back. Besides, you know we're all pretty well done up. One man by himself might fall asleep." He sounded so anxious that Mallory laughed. "Not a chance, Dusty. Each man will keep watch by the window there and if he falls asleep he'll damn' soon wake up when he hits the floor. And it's because we're so darned bushed that we can't afford to have anyone lose sleep unnecessarily. Myself first, then you, then Panayis, then Casey, then Andrea." "Yeah, I suppose that'll be O.K.," Miller conceded grudgingly. He put something hard and cold into his hand. Mallory recognised it at onceit was Miller's most cherished possession, his silenced automatic. "Just so's you can fill any nosy customers full of little holes without wakin' the whole town." He ambled off to the back of the room, lit a cigarette, smoked it quietly for a few moments, then swung his legs up on the bench. Within five minutes everyone except the silently watchful man at the window was sound asleep. Two or three minutes later Mallory jerked to unmoving attention as he heard a stealthy sound outside-from the back of the house, he thought. The clacking of the looms next door had stopped, and the house was very still. Again there came the noise, unmistakable this time, a gentle tapping at the door at the end of the passage that led from the back of the room. "Remain there, my Captain." It was Andrea's soft murmur, and Mallory marveled for the hundredth time

Hived in our bosoms like the bag o' the bee.

deadened flesh with mittened hands till the blood came throbbing back, then pulled my snow-mask higher still. The plane was flying in an anti-clockwise direction, following, it seemed, the path of an irregular oval, for the sound of its motors faded slightly as it curved round to north and west. But within thirty seconds it was approaching again, in a swelling thunder of sound, to the south-westto the leeward of us, that wasand I could tell from Jackstraw's explosive ejaculation of sound, muffled behind his mask, that he had seen it at the same moment as myself. It was less than half a mile distant, no more than five hundred feet above the ice-cap, and during the five seconds it remained inside my line of vision I felt my mouth go dry and my heart begin to thud heavily in my chest. No SAC bomber this, nor a Thule met. plane, both with crews highly trained in the grim craft of Arctic survival. That long row of brightly illuminated cabin windows could belong to only one thinga trans-Atlantic or trans-polar airliner. "You saw it, Dr Mason?" Jackstraw's snow-mask was close to my ear. "I saw it." It was all I could think to say. But what I was seeing then was not the plane, now again vanished into the flying ice and drift, but the inside of the plane, with the passengersGod, how many passengers, fifty, seventy?sitting in the cosy security of their pressurised cabin with an air-conditioned temperature of 70 F, then the crash, the tearing, jagged screeching that set the teeth on edge as the thin metal shell ripped along its length and the tidal wave of that dreadful cold, 110 degrees below cabin temperature, swept in and engulfed the survivors, the dazed, the injured, the unconscious and the dying as they sat or lay crumpled in the wreckage of the seats, clad only in thin suits and dresses. . . . The plane had completed a full circuit and was coming round again. If anything, it was even closer this time, at least a hundred feet lower, and it seemed to have lost some speed. It might have been doing 120, perhaps 130 miles an hour, I was no expert in these things, but for that size of plane, so close to the ground, it seemed a dangerously low speed. I wondered just how effective the pilot's windscreen wipers would be against these flying ice spicules. And then I forgot all about that, forgot all about everything except the desperate, urgent need for speed. Just before the plane had turned round to the east again and so out of the line of our blinded vision, it had seemed to dip and at the same digital camera speed of recovery instant two powerful lights stabbed out into the darkness, the one lancing straight ahead, a narrow powerful beam glittering and gleaming with millions of sparkling diamond points of flame as the ice-crystals in the air flashed across its path, the other, a broader fan of light, pointing downwards and only slightly ahead, its oval outline flitting across the frozen snow like some flickering will o' the wisp. I grabbed Jackstraw's arm and put my head close to his. "He's going to land! He's looking for a place to put down. Get the dogs, harness them up." We had a tractor, but heaven only knew how long it would have taken to start it on a night like this. "I'll give you a hand as soon as I can." He nodded, turned and was lost to sight in a moment. I turned too, cursed as my face collided with the slatted sides of the instrument shelter, then jumped for the hatch, sliding down to the floor of the cabin on back and arms without bothering to use the steps. Joss, already completely clad in his furs but with the hood of his parka hanging over his shoulders, was just emerging from the food and fuel tunnel which led off from the other end of the cabin, his arms loaded with equipment. "Grab all the warm clothing you can find, Joss," I told him quickly. I was trying to think as quickly and coherently as I was talking, to figure out everything that we might require, but it wasn't easy, that intense cold numbed the mind almost as much as it did the body. "Sleeping-bags, blankets, spare coats, shirts, it doesn't matter whose they are. Shove them into a couple of gunny sacks." "You think they're going to land, sir?" Curiosity, anticipation, horroreach struggled for supremacy in the thin, dark intelligent face. "You really think so?" "I think they're going to try. What have you got there?" "Fire bombs, a couple of Pyrenes." He dumped them by the stove. "Hope they're not solid." "Good boy. And a couple of the tractor extinguishersthe Nu-Swifts, G-1000,1 think." A great help these little things are going to be, I thought, if several thousand gallons of petrol decide to go up in flames. "Fire axes, crowbars, canes, the homing spoolfor heaven's sake don't forget the hojning spooland the searchlight battery. Be sure and wrap that up well." "Bandages?" "No need. Seventy degrees of frost will freeze blood and seal a wound quicker than any bandage. But bring the morphia kit. Any water in

My deir son I tell thee O.

It was Jackstraw who heard it firstit was always Jackstraw, whose hearing was an even match for his phenomenal eyesight, who heard things first. Tired of having my exposed hands alternately frozen, I had dropped my book, zipped my sleeping-bag up to the chin and was drowsily watching him carving figurines from a length of inferior narwhal tusk when his hands suddenly fell still and he sat quite motionless. Then, unhurriedly as always, he dropped the piece of bone into the coffee-pan that simmered gently by the side of our oil-burner stovecurio collectors paid fancy prices for what they O I hae killed my reid-roan steid, imagined to be the dark ivory of fossilised elephant tusksrose and put his ear to the ventilation shaft, his eyes remote in the unseeing gaze of a man lost in listening. A couple of seconds were enough. "Aeroplane," he announced casually. "Aeroplane!" I propped myself up on an elbow and stared at him. "Jackstraw, you've been hitting the methylated spirits again." "Indeed, no, Dr Mason." The blue eyes, so incongruously at

In mirth would spend some time.

It was Jackstraw who heard it firstit was always Jackstraw, whose hearing was an even match for his phenomenal eyesight, who heard things first. Tired of having my exposed hands alternately frozen, I had dropped my book, zipped my sleeping-bag up to the chin and was drowsily watching him carving figurines from a length of inferior narwhal tusk when his hands suddenly fell still and he sat quite motionless. Then, unhurriedly as always, he dropped the piece of bone into the coffee-pan that simmered gently by the side of our oil-burner stovecurio collectors paid fancy prices for what they And as he walkd the forrest along, imagined to be the dark ivory of fossilised elephant tusksrose and put his ear to the ventilation shaft, his eyes remote in the unseeing gaze of a man lost in listening. A couple of seconds were enough. "Aeroplane," he announced casually. "Aeroplane!" I propped myself up on an elbow and stared at him. "Jackstraw, you've been hitting the methylated spirits again." "Indeed, no, Dr Mason." The blue eyes, so incongruously at

Behind the panes, which wind about

her, looked at her watch and smiled. "Twenty minutes, exactly. You are very prompt, young man." "We try to be of service." I dumped the pile of clothes I was carrying on a seat, nodded at them and the contents of a gunny sack Joss and Jackstraw were emptying. "Share these out between you and be as quick as you can. I want you to get out at oncemy two friends here will take you back. Perhaps one of you will be kind enough to remain behind." I looked to where the young girl still sat alone in her back seat, still holding her left forearm in her hand. "I'll need some help to fix this young lady up." "Fix her up?" It was the expensive young woman in the expensive furs speaking for the first time. Her voice was expensive as the rest of her and made me want to reach for a hairbrush. "Why? What on earth is the mattef with her?" "Her collar-bone is broken," I said shortly. "Collar-bone broken?" The elderly lady was on her feet, her face a nice mixture of concern and indignation. "And she's been sitting there alone all this timewhy didn't you tell us, you silly man?" "I forgot," I replied mildly. "Besides, what good would it have done?" I looked down at the girl in the mink coat. Goodness only knew that I didn't particularly want her, but the injured girl had struck me as being almost painfully shy, and I was sure she'd prefer to have one of her own sex around. "Would you like to give me a hand?" She stared at me, a cold surprised stare that would have been normal enough had I made some outrageous or improper request, but before she could answer the elderly lady broke in again. "I'll stay behind. I'd love to help." "Well" I began doubtfully, but she interrupted immediately. "Well yourself. What's the matter? Think I'm too old, hey?" "No, no, of course not," I protested. "A fluent liar, but a gallant one." She grinned. "Come on, we're wasting this valuable time you're always so concerned about." We brought the girl into the first of the rear seats, where there was plenty of space between that and the first of the rearward facing front seats, and had just worked her coat off when Joss called me. "We're off now, sir. Back in twenty minutes." As the door closed behind the last of them and I digital video camera sv 101 broke open a roll of bandage, the old lady looked quizzically at me. "Know what you're doing, young man?" "More or less. I'm a doctor." "Doctor, hey?" She looked at me with open suspicion, and what with my bulky, oil-streaked and smelly furs, not to mention the fact that I hadn't shaved for three days, I suppose there was justification enough for it. "You sure?" "Sure I'm sure," I said irritably. "What do you expect me to dowhip my medical degree out from under this parka or just wear round my neck a brass plate giving my consulting hours?" "We'll get along, young man," she chuckled. She patted my arm, then turned to the young girl. "What's your name, my dear?" "Helene." We could hardly catch it, the voice was so low: her embarrassment was positively painful. "Helene? A lovely name." And indeed, the way she said it made it sound so. "You're not British, are you? Or American?" "I'm from Germany, madam." "Don't call me 'madam'. You know, you speak English beautifully. Germany, hey? Bavaria, for a guess?" "Yes." The rather plain face was transfigured in a smile, and I mentally saluted the old lady for the ease with which she was distracting the young girl's thoughts from the pain. "Munich. Perhaps you know it?" "Like the back of my hand," she said complacently. "And not just the Hofbrauhaus either. You're still very young, aren't you?" "I'm seventeen." "Seventeen." A nostalgic sigh. "Ah, my dear, I remember when I was seventeen. A different world. There was no trans-Atlantic airliner in those days, I can tell you." "In fact," I murmured, "the Wright brothers were hardly airborne." The face had been more than familiar to me, and I was annoyed that I should have taken so long in placing it: I suppose it was because her normal setting was so utterly different from this bleak and frozen world. "Being insulting, young man?" she queried. But there was no offence in her face. "I can't imagine anyone ever insulting you. The world was at your feet even in the Edwardian days, Miss LeGarde." "You know me, then?" She seemed genuinely pleased. "It would be difficult to find anyone who doesn't know the name of Marie LeGarde." I nodded at the

To the stranger, and merrily spoke:

freezing middle of nowhere with three fur-clad people, complete with snow-goggles and snow-masks, waddling about the aisle of the plane. "You've crash-landed," I said briefly. "I don't know whyhow the hell should I? The noise outside is an ice-blizzard rattling against the fuselage. As for us, we are scientists managing an International Geophysical Year station half a mile from here. We saw and heard you just before you crashed." I made to push past him, but he barred my way. "Just a minute, if you don't mind." The voice was more authoritative than ever and there was a surprising amount of muscle in that arm across my chest. "I think we have a right to know" "Later." I knocked his arm away and Jackstraw completed the job by pushing him down into his seat. "Don't make a damned nuisance of yourself. There's a critically injured man who has to have attention, and at once. We'll take him to safety and then come back for you. Keep the door shut." I was addressing all of them now, but the white-haired man's wrathful spluttering attracted my attention again. "And if you don't shut up and co-operate, you can stay here. If it weren't for us you'd be dead, stiff as a board, in a couple of hours. Maybe you will be yet." I moved up the aisle, followed by Jackstraw. The young man who had been lying on the floor pulled himself on to a seat, and he grinned at me as I passed. "How to win friends and influence people." He had a slow cultured drawl. "I fear you have offended our worthy friend." "I fear I have." I smiled, passed by, then turned. These wide shoulders and large capable hands could be more than useful to us. "How are you feeling?" "Recoverin' rapidly." "You are indeed. You didn't look so good a minute ago." "Just takin' a long count," he said easily. "Can I help?" "That's why I asked," I nodded. "Glad to oblige." He heaved himself to his feet, towering inches above me. The little man in the loud tie and the Glenurquhart jacket gave an anguished sound, like the yelp of an injured puppy. "Careful, Johnny, careful!" The voice, the rich, nasal and rather grating twang, was pure Bowery. "We got our responsibilities, boy, big commitments. We might strain a ligament" "Relax, Solly." The big man patted him soothingly on his bald head. "Just takin' a little walk to clear my head." "Not sayno waterproof digital video camera till you put this parka and pants on first." I'd no time to bother about the eccentricities of little men in loud jackets and louder ties. "You'll need them." "Cold doesn't bother me, friend." "This cold will. Outside that door it's 110 degrees below the temperature of this cabin." I heard a murmur of astonishment from some of the passengers, and the large young man, suddenly thoughtful, took the clothes from Jackstraw. I didn't wait until he had put them on, but went out with Joss. The stewardess was bent low over the injured wireless operator. I pulled her gently to her feet. She offered no resistance, just looked wordlessly at me, the deep brown eyes huge in a face dead-white and strained with shock. She was shivering violently. Her hands were like ice. "You want to die of cold, Miss?" This was no time for soft and sympathetic words, and I knew these girls were trained how to behave in emergencies. "Haven't you got a hat, coat, boots, anything like that?" "Yes." Her voice was dull, almost devoid of life. She was standing alone by the door now, and I could hear the violent rat-a-tat of her elbow as it shook uncontrollably and knocked against the door. "I'll go and get them." Joss scrambled out through the windscreen to get the collapsible stretcher. While we were waiting I went to the exit door behind the flight deck and tried to open it, swinging at it with the back of my fire axe. But it was locked solid. We had the stretcher up and were lashing the wireless operator inside as carefully as we could in these cramped conditions, when the stewardess reappeared. She was wearing her uniform heavy coat now, and high boots. I tossed her a pair of caribou trousers. "Better, but not enough. Put these on." She hesitated, and I added roughly, "We won't look." "I -1 must go and see the passengers." "They're all right. Bit late in thinking about it, aren't you?" "I know. I'm sorry. I couldn't leave him." She looked down at the young man at her feet. "Do youI mean" She broke off, then it came out with a rush. "Is he going to die?" "Probably," I said, and she flinched away as if I had struck her across the face. I hadn't meant to be brutal, just clinical. "We'll do what we can for him. It's not much, I'm afraid." Finally we had him