"He has one, too."

"I know that also."

"If you can kill him at all, you kill him without it."

"Okay."

"You do not trust me."

"I don't trust anybody."

"Do you remember the night you hired me?"

"Faintly."

"It was the best meal I ever had in my life. Pork chops. Lots of them."

"It comes back to me."

"You told me of s.h.i.+mbo then. Invoke him and Shandon will invoke the other one. Too many variables. It may be fatal."

"Maybe Shandon has gotten to you."

"No. I am just measuring probabilities."

"Could Yarl the Omnipotent create a stone he could not lift?" Green Green asked him.

"No," said Courtcour.

"Why not?"

"He would not."

"That is no answer."

"Yes it is. Think about it. Would _you?_"

"I do not trust him," said Green Green. "He was normal when I brought him back, but I believe that perhaps Shandon has reached him."

"No," said Courtcour. "I am trying to help you."

"By telling Sandow he is going to die?"

"Well, he is."

Green raised his hand, and suddenly he was holding my gun, which he must have teleported from my belt, in the same fas.h.i.+on as he had obtained the tapes. He fired twice and handed it back to me.

"Why did you do that?"

"He was lying to you, trying to confuse you. Trying to destroy your confidence."

"He was once a close a.s.sociate of mine. He had trained himself to think like a computer. I think he was trying to be objective."

"Get the tape and you can resurrect him."

"Come on. I've got two hours and fifty-eight minutes."

We walked away.

"Should I not have done that?" he asked me, after a time.

"No."

"I am sorry."

"Great. Don't kill anybody else unless I ask you to, huh?"

"All right. --You have killed many people, have you not, Frank?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Them or me, and I'd rather it was them."

"So?"

"You didn't have to kill Bodgis."

"I thought--"

"Shut up. Just shut up."

We walked on, pa.s.sing through a cleft of rock. Tendrils of mist snaked by, touched our garments. Another shadowy figure stood off to the side, at the place where we emerged upon a downward-sloping trail.

". . . Coming to die," she said, and I stopped and looked at her.

"Lady Karle."

"Pa.s.s on, pa.s.s on," she said. "Hasten to your doom. You could not know what it means to me."

"I loved you once," I said, which was not the right thing to say at all.

She shook her head.

"The only thing you ever loved--besides yourself-- was money. You got it. You killed more people than I know of to keep your empire, Frank. Now there has finally come a man who can take you. I am proud to be present at your doom."

I turned on the torch and shone it upon her. Her hair was so red and her features so white. . . . Her face was heart-shaped and her eyes were green, as I remembered them. For a moment, I ached for her.

"What if I take _him?_" I asked.

"Then I'm probably going to be yours again for awhile," she replied, "but I hope not. You are evil and I want you to die. I'd find a way myself, if you were to have me again."

"Stop," said Green Green. "I brought you back from the dead. I brought this man here to kill him. I was usurped by a human being who, fortunately or unfortunately, is possessed of a similar intention with respect to Sandow. But Frank and I have our fates cast together now. Consider me. I restored you and I will preserve you. Help us to get at our enemy and I will reward you."

She moved out of the circle of light and hen laughter came down upon us.

"No," she called out. "No, thank you."

"I once loved you," I said.

There was silence, then, "Could you do it again?"

"I don't really know, but you mean something to me--something important."

"Pa.s.s on," she said. "All debts be canceled. Co to Shandon and die."

"Please," I said. "Once upon a time, when I held you it meant much to me. Lady Karle, I have never stopped caring for you, even after you left. And it was not I who broke the Ten of Algol, though this is often said."

"It was you."

"I think I could convince you that it was not."

"Don't bother trying. Pa.s.s on."

"All right," I said. "I won't stop, though."

"What? Stop what?"

"Caring for you, some," I said.

"Pa.s.s on. Please pa.s.s on!"

And we did.

All that time we had been speaking her language-- Dralmin--and I hadn't even realized that I had switched from English. Funny.

"You have loved many women, haven't you, Frank?" asked Green Green.

"Yes."

"Were you lying to her--about caring for her?"

"No."

We followed the trail until I could see the lights of the chalet before/below me. We continued in that direction, and a final figure appeared, drew near.

"Nick!"

"That's right, mister."

"It's me--Frank!"

"By G.o.d, I think it is. Come closer, huh?"

"Sure. Here's a light." I spilled it all over myself so that he could see.

"Jesus! It's really you!" he said. "That guy down there is a nut, you know, and he's after you."

"Yeah, I know."

"He wanted me to help get you, and I told him to go indulge in auto-eroticism. He was mad. We had a fight. I busted his nose and got the h.e.l.l out. He didn't come after me, though. He's tough."

"I know."

"I'm going to help you get him."

"Okay."

"But I don't like that guy you're with."

Nick, all out of the past and storming. . . . It was great.

"What do you mean?"

"He's the one responsible for the whole thing. He brought me back, and the others. He's a sneaky son of a b.i.t.c.h. If I were you, I'd take him out of the picture real quick."

"We're allies now, he and I."

Nick spat.

"I'm going to get you, mister," he said to Green Green. "When this whole thing is over, you're mine. Remember those days when you questioned me? It wasn't fun. --And now, my turn will come."

"All right."

"No, it isn't! It's not all right at all. You called me 'Shorty,' or the Pei'an equivalent thereof, you dumb vegetable! When I get my turn, I'll roast you! I'm glad I'm alive again, and I guess I owe that to you. But I'll croak you, b.a.s.t.a.r.d! You've got it coming, and you'd better believe it. I'll take you with anything available."

"I doubt it, little man," Green Green said.

"Let's wait and see," I said.

So Nick joined us, walking on the other side of me from Green Green.

"Is he down there now?" I asked.

"Yes. Do you have a bomb?"

"Yes."