The battel, and so we'll away.

adjacent disciplines. He maintains that Music is dependent on Communications, and I, of course, take the position that Music is independent and without it, Communications would have nothing to disseminate! But of course! Killashandra mustered a broad and giddy smile with which she favored both men impartially. Ampris accepted her evasion with a slight smile while Torkes bowed as if her ambiguous reply awarded him the decision. What sort of crystal network does your facility use, Elder Torkes? Crystal? Torkess piercing stare was affronted. We have no funds to waste on that sort of technology. Crystal is reserved for musicians! Really? And Killashandra caught the barest glimpse of the satisfied reaction from Ampris. Torkes seemed totally oblivious to the implication of his statement. Even when crystal is a very natural Crystal is not natural to Optheria. Not a native product, you understand. And we must maintain the integrity of our Charter. Indeed? Do you not violate that integrity by using alien instrumentation? Torkes dismissed her argument with a flick of his bony fingers. Music is an art form which we were able to bring with us, within the mind. It is intangible And what is communication, then? Can it be touched? Smelt? Tasted? Torkes stared at her so fiercely that Killashandra was made aware of the fact that not only had she dared to interrupt an Elder but she had argued with him. She sensed rather than saw Ampriss intense amusement then, in the blink of his eyes, when Torkes was faced with the unpalatable realization that a Heptite Guild-member, an invited specialist urgently required by his planet, held equal status with himself. Of course, Ampris said, breaking the heavy silence that ensued, the organ was developed by an Optherian for Optherian purposes and is, in fact, unique to our planet. Yes, yes, quite so, Torkes mumbled just as a mellow chime discreetly ended the reception. Torkes made an adroit escape. So, one does not dispute with you Elders here? Killashandra asked, watching him move off through the throng. It is good for us, I assure you, Ampris replied with a chuckle. Fortunately Torkes is more flexible than he sounds, for when he changes Seats, he becomes totally committed to his immediate responsibility. When Killashandra looked quizzical, he added: We Elders change our duties every four years, so as not to become too narrow in our understanding of x-ray and digital cameras the overview. I see. Then you are wiser than your years, Ampris said, for I cannot believe that an administrator who is tone deaf can effectively guide Music: or that an Elder who cannot integrate should have charge of the Treasury. However, the governmental mechanism is so weighty that four years of mismanagement generally produce no more than annoying miscalculations and minor blunders easily corrected. The brilliance of the Founding Fathers of Optheria is once more unquestionably elucidated. Thyrol appeared, respectfully inclining his upper body at his interruption. Elder Ampris, Guildmaster Ree, if you will proceed to the dining chamber? The beauty of the hall, the elegantly set table and Elder Ampriss earlier comment deceived Killashandra into anticipating a far better meal. Although presented in appealing style, the miniscule portions did not appeased Killashandras heavy appetite. Nor was she offered enough of any one food to make a positive identification of its constituents or savor its taste. The courses were accompanied by beverages which were so bland that the water had more zest to it and not a brew or a ferment among them. Killashandras exasperated sigh caught the attention of Elder Pentrom, her right-hand dinner partner. Something is amiss? he asked politely and then stared for a brief moment at her clean plate. He was but halfway through the food on his. Doesnt Optheria produce brews, or vintages or something with more taste than these, Elder Pentrom? You mean an alcoholic beverage? he said, as if she had made a particularly obscene suggestion. Killashandra favored him with a longer look and decided that with his prim mouth, sharp chin, and tiny eyes, no other reaction could have been expected. Indeed I do mean alcoholic beverages. He opened his mouth to protest, but before he could utter a word she said, Alcohol is essential to the proper metabolic function of a crystal singer. I have never heard that in all my years as Medical Supervisor of this planet. Have you encountered many crystal singers in your career? Piqued by yet another dogmatic encounter, Killashandra discarded any semblance of tact. These people needed a set-down and she was in the enviable position of being able to give it with impunity. In actual

Edward, Edward,

German uniform, standing on the deck for'ard of the wheelhouse, Louki crouched low inside the wheelhouse itself. Suddenly, about sixty yards away, a signal lamp began to flash at them, its urgent clacking quite audible in the stillness of the night "Dan'l Boone Miller will now show how it's done," Miller muttered. He edged closer to the machine-gun on the starboard bow. "With my little gun. I shall . . ." He broke off sharply, his voice lost in the sudden clacking from the wheelhouse behind him, the staccato off-beat chattering of a signal shutter triggered by professional fingers. Brown had handed the wheel over to Louki, was morsing back to the harbour entrance, the cold rain lancing palely through the ifickering beams of the lamp. The enemy lamp had stopped but now began flashing again.. "My, they got a lot to say to each other," Miller said admiringly. "How long do the exchange of courtesies last, boss?" "I should say they are just about finished." Mallory moved back quickly to the wheelhouse. They were less than a hundred feet from the harbour entrance. Brown had confused the enemy, gained precious seconds, more time than Mallory had ever thought they could gain. But it couldn't last. He touched Brown on the arm. "Give her everything you've got when the balloon goes up." Two seconds later he was back in position in the bows, Schmeisser ready in his hands. "Your big chance, Dan'l Boone. Don't give the searchlights a chance to line upthey'll blind you." Even as he spoke, the light from the signal lamp at the harbour mouth cut off abruptly and two dazzling white beams, one from either side of the harbour entrance, stabbed blindingly through the darkness, bathing the whole harbour in their savage glarea glare that lasted for only a fleeting second of time, yielded to a contrastingly stygian darkness as two brief bursts of machine-gun fire smashed them into uselessness. From such short range it had been almost impossible to miss. "Get down, everyone!" Mallory shouted. "Flat on the deck!" The echoes of the gunfire were dying away, the reverberations fading along the great sea wall of the fortress when Casey Brown cut in all six cylinders of the engine and opened the throttle wide, the surging roar of the big Diesel blotting out all other sounds in the night. Five seconds, ten seconds, they were passing through the entrance, fifteen, twenty, still not a shot fired, half a minute and they were well clear, bows lifting high out of the water, the deep-dipped underwater digital camera pentax stern trailing its long, seething ribbon of phosphorescent white as the engine crescendoed to its clamorous maximum power and Brown pulled the heeling craft sharply round to starboard, seeking the protection of the steep-walled cliffs. "A desperate battle, boss, but the better men won." Miller was on his feet now, clinging to a mounted gun for support as the deck canted away beneath his feet. "My grandchildren shall hear of this." "Guards probably all up searching the town. Or maybe there were some poor blokes behind these searchlights. Or maybe we just took 'em all by surprise." Mallory shook his head. "Anyway you take it, we're just plain damn' lucky." He moved aft, into the wheelhouse. Brown was at the wheel, Louki almost crowing with delight "That was magnificent, Casey," Mallory said sincerely. "A first-class job of work. Cut the engine when we come to the end of the cliffs. Our job's done. I'm going ashore." "You don't have to, Major." Mallory turned. "What's that?" "You don't have to. I tried to tell you on the way down, but you kept telling me to be quiet." Louki sounded injured, turned to Casey. "Slow down, please. The last thing Andrea told me, Major, was that we were to come this way. Why do you think he let himself be trapped against the cliffs to the north instead of going out into the country, where he could have hidden easily." "Is this true, Casey?" Mallory asked. "Don't ask me, sir. Those twothey always talk. in Greek." "Of course, of course." Mallory looked at the low cliffs close off the starboard beam, barely moving now with the engine shut right down, looked back at Louki. "Are you quite sure . . ." He stopped in mid-sentence, jumped out through the wheelhouse door. The splashthere had been no mistaking the noise-had come from almost directly ahead. Mallory, Miller by his side, peered into the darkness, saw a dark head surfacing above the water less than twenty feet away, leaned far over with outstretched arm as the launch slid slowly by. Five seconds later Andrea stood on the deck, dripping mightily and beaming all over his great moon face. Mallory led him straight into the wheelhouse, switched on the soft light of the shaded chartlamp. "By all that's

And oft by yon blue gushing stream

these clothes, Miss Ross is indistinguishable from a manespecially from the air. They'll think it's you and Corazzini and they'll blast you both off the face of the glacier." I knew Smallwood believed me, believed me absolutely, this was so exactly the way his own killer's mind would have worked in its utterly callous indifference to human life that conviction could not be stayed. But he had courage, I'll grant him that, and that first-class brain of his never stopped working. "There's no hurry," he said comfortably. He was back on balance again. "They can circle there as long as they like, they can send out relief planes to take over, it doesn't matter. As long as I'm with you here, they won't touch me. And in just over an hour or so it will be dark again, after which I can leave. Meantime, stay close to me, gentlemen: I don't think you would so willingly sacrifice Miss Ross's life." "Don't listen to him," Margaret said desperately. Her voice was almost a sob, her face twisted in pain. "Go away, please, all of you, go away. I know he's going to kill me in the end anyway. It may as well be now." She buried her face in her hands. "I don't care any more, I don't, I don't!" "But I care," I said angrily. Soft words, sympathetic words were useless here. "We all care. Don't be such a little fool. Everything will be all right, you'll see." "Spoken like a man," said Smallwood approvingly. "Only, my dear, I wouldn't pay much attention to the last pan of his speech." "Why don't you give up, Smallwood?" I asked him quietly. I had neither hope nor intention of persuading this fanatic, I was only talking for time, for I had seen something that had made my heart leap: moving quietly out over the right-hand side of the glacier, from the self-same spot where we had lain in ambush, was a file of about a dozen men. "Bombers have already taken off from the carrier, and, believe me, they're carrying bombs. Bombs and incendiaries. And do you know why, Smallwood?" They were dressed in khaki, this landing party from the Wykenham, not navy blue. Marines, almost certainly, unless they had been carrying soldiers on some combined manoeuvres. They were heavily armed, and had that indefinable but unmistakable look of men who knew exactly what they were about. Their leader, I noticed, wasn't fooling around with the usual pistol a naval officer in charge of a landing party traditionally carried: he had a sub-machine-gun under his arm, the barrel gripped in his left hand. Three others had similar weapons, the rest rifles. "Because they're going usb cable for digital camera to make good and sure you're never going to get off this glacier alive, Smallwood," I went on. "At least, not out of the fjord alive. Neither you nor any of your friends coming to meet younor any of the men waiting aboard that trawler down there." God, how slowly they were coming! Why didn't one of their marksmen with a rifle shoot Smallwood there and thenat that moment, the thought that a rifle bullet would have gone clear though Smallwood and killed the girl held so tightly in front of him never occurred to me. But if I could hold his attention another thirty seconds, if none of the others standing by my side betrayed by the slightest flicker of expression "They're going to destroy that trawler, Smallwood," I rushed on quickly. The men advancing up from the foot of the glacier were waving their arms furiously now, shouting wildly in warning, and even at over three-quarters of a mile their voices were carrying clearly. I had to try to drown their voices, to make sure that Smallwood kept his eyes fixed only on me. "They're going to blow it out of the water, it and you and that damned missile mechanism. What's the use of" But it was too late. Smallwood had heard the shouts even as I had begun to speak, twisted his head to look down the valley, saw the direction of the pointing arms, glanced briefly over his shoulder, then turned to face me again, his face twisted in a bestial snarl, that monolithic calm shattered at last: "Who are they?" he demanded viciously. "What are they doing? Quickor the girl gets it!" "It's a landing party from the destroyer in the next bay," I said steadily. "This is the end, Smallwood. Maybe you'll stand trial yet." "I'll kill the girl!" he whispered savagely. "They'll kill you. They've been ordered to recover that mechanism at all costs. Nobody's playing any more, Smallwood. Give up your gun." He swore, vilely, blasphemously, the first time I had ever heard such words from him, and leapt for the driving cabin of the tractor, pushing the girl in front of him while his pistol swung in a wide arc covering all of us. I understood what he was going to do, what this last desperate suicidal gamble was going to be, and hurled myself at the door of the driving cabin. "You madman!" My voice was a scream. "You'll kill yourself, you'll kill the girl" The gun coughed softly, I felt the white-hot burning pain in my upper arm