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about it.
Then Bayon moved.
Involved as they were with one another, neither man saw us as we covered the
three paces which separated us. They reacted only when violent hands were laid
upon them.
Bayon reached out to take Mavra's head in the crook of his arm, and swung the
smaller man around effortlessly. Mavra gasped, but he was drowned by Bayon's
loud yell.
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ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
'Ezra! Get Krist! Tob the other one! Grainger the girl.'
The allocation of tasks did not represent any denigration of my fighting
spirit relative to his own men, but merely reflected the way we had lined up.
We were already halfway to completing what Bayon demanded of us.
Ezra took hold of the man that I had not recognised - Akim Krist, it seemed -
and shoved him into the wall of the tunnel, moving in behind him so that
Krist's body shielded him from the armed men, while his own rifle was aligned
across Krist's chest in a threatening position.
Meanwhile, Bayon had gone forward, moving Mavra with him as a human shield.
Capra had moved instinctively backward and to one side, and it was not
necessary for
Tob to clear him out of Bayon's way. But Angelina froze, and I had to lunge
forward, lift her bodily, and then force her right down, so that Ezra and Harl
could - if necessary - fire over our bodies. Chivalrously, I fell on top of
her instead of getting underneath her so that she would absorb any loose lead.
I think it was an accident - it was the way we fell.
The guards had acted with all due suddenness in levelling their guns and
striking an aggressive pose. Mercifully, though, they were not so
trigger-conscious as to let fly without a decent amount of premeditation.
Sensibly, they didn't fire at all.
There was a sudden and profound silence. I caught myself waiting for something
to happen, and remembered that I was the mouthpiece.
'Put the guns down,' I said levelly.
The guards hesitated. Their exaggerated trepidation clearly showed that they
recognised
Bayon, who was only a few feet away, staring at them over Mavra's head. But it
was quite clear that the Hierarch himself, Akim Krist, was convinced of the
reality of the gun which held him pinned to the wall, and he was having no
trouble compromising with the unreality of its holder. 'Tell 'em, Krist,'
growled Ezra, relishing the menace in his own voice. Heroically, Krist ignored
him.
I released Angelina, leaving her huddled on the ground. I brushed past the
trailing arm of the prisoned Mavra and walked up to the guards. They looked at
me with distaste, but they had already relaxed the attitude of their guns. I
secured both rifles, and used them to point the way into the grotto. Both
guards accepted the invitation, and descended the short slope into the
glittering interior of the treasure cave.
I turned around, bowed slightly, and gestured to the grotto with my empty
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ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
hand.
My eyes met Mavra's. His gaze was colourless, lacking both surprise and
reproach. Krist, however, had realised that I was solid, and was regarding me
with mixed hatred and anger. His eyes were fixed on me, as he refused to
honour my companions with the direction of his stare.
One by one, they all filed past me into the grotto. Harl helped Angelina to
her feet, and to my surprise - and his - she thanked him in a low voice. She
almost smiled at
ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
me as she brushed past, but her face couldn't quite manage it. In any case, it
would have been an enigmatic smile - I was reasonably sure that she was not
amused, and she could hardly be making us welcome.
I was about to enter, last of all, but I had to step back to let Harl out
again. After the slightest of glances around the object of our exercise he had
been ordered out again by
Bayon to replace the previous guardians. He carried both of our lamps, and he
was taking the masks off the other lights preparatory to distributing them
intelligently in the corridor when I stepped into the grotto.
It was full of light.
Even so, there was no glare. The light was faint and filmy, like the light of
the
Milky Way as seen from a rim world on a clear night. It was an oddly familiar
and - to me - beautiful effect. The floor had been cleared to leave a short
pathway and a square space in the centre of the cave, which was just adequate
to accommodate the ten of us.
Standing room only.
The grotto was shaped like a cone with the point lopped off, but the interior
surface was knobbed and distorted, with abundant rock-forms like stalagmites
and stalactites. It looked to be a stress-cyst rather than an alveolar pocket.
Its base diameter was about five metres, but the walls sloped inwards,
tapering so that at eye-height the grotto only seemed to be about three metres
wide. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]