When the recon drone came over, Terl would have a picture of this. Far, far below, as yet invisible in the darkness, a new fall of rock would tell the story.
Jonnie tried to guess Terl’s reaction. It was difficult to do so, for Terl was undoubtedly over his own edge into madness.
How many hours did Jonnie have until the drone? Not many.
The air was unaccountably still. The morning wind had not started up. The dawn light was reflected back from the surrounding majestic peaks.
Jonnie ran over to a flying platform and gestured to a pilot to join him. He lifted it up, put it over the edge of the chasm, and dropped it like a rocket to the bottom. He braked it and hovered.
Turning on the beam lights of the platform he examined the mass of fallen rock. Some of it had gone through the river ice. Some of it made a new bank for the stream. He played the light through the debris. It was an enormous mass.
Hopefully, he looked for some slightest whiteness that would indicate a piece of the lode.
None!
A ton of gold perhaps. But now it was buried under a mountain of rock-fall, possibly even plunged into the river bottom.
The debris was so peaked and broken one couldn’t even land on it. He tossed around the idea of clearing a flat place. But it would take hours and the winds would be here soon.
He had to face it. The gold was gone.
The morning wind was beginning to blow now. He couldn’t stay down here and live to tell about it. If he had another short period of morning quiet he might do something. But they’d used up their time.
He sent the flying platform screaming up to the cliff top. It was already being buffeted by turbulent air. He landed.
He told Robert the Fox, “Get these men back to the town.”
Jonnie walked back and forth. The parson looked at him in sympathy. “We aren’t done yet, laddie,” said the parson. The whole group looked to be in the shock of disappointment.
Robert the Fox was looking at Jonnie. They were loading the saved crew and two pilots were at the controls of the plane. Dunneldeen was being eased gently aboard.
“I’m going to do it!” said Jonnie suddenly.
Robert the Fox and the parson walked over.
“Terl,” said Jonnie, “doesn’t know how close that drift was to the inside of the lode. He doesn’t know that we hadn’t already mined the back of it. If he sees that white quartz out there he’ll know we didn’t get to it before the slide. Thor!” he shouted. “How close were you to the fissure?”
Thor asked the shift leader and they did some calculations. “About five feet,” Thor finally shouted from the plane.
“I’ll blow it in,” said Jonnie. “It doesn’t matter now if we blast. I’m going to blow the last end of the drift so it looks like it was through! Take that plane back fast and get me explosives and a shot-holer gun!”
He rattled off the exact explosives needed and the plane with the salvaged crew vibrated, ready to take off.
“And bring in the next shift!” shouted Jonnie. “We’ve very little time till the recon drone pass-over. Fly fast!” It was daylight now and they could. The plane roared off the pad.
Jonnie didn’t wait for it to get back before he started to work. He went down the shaft, carrying some tools, got out of the bucket at the bottom, and made his way over the rubble and into the drift.
The crew’s equipment was still lying about. The lamps were still on. Jonnie picked up a drill and began to make six-inch-deep holes all around the extreme edges of the white quartz. Two Scots picked up other drills and began to help him when they saw what he was doing: he was putting in shot holes.
While he worked he had others of the rescue team clear the remaining equipment out of the drift and take it above. No reason to waste that. Only the shift radio had been smashed in the rockfall. This drift would never be used again and it might well blow to bits.
He was surprised the plane came back so fast. He was in radio contact with the surface and he told them what he wanted down there.
Very shortly the explosives arrived. He put powerful, molding explosive into each one of the shot holes. Then on top of that he put a giant concussion-fired blasting cap. On top of all that he packed neutral goo. It was rigged so it would blow outward toward the cliff face.
He went back up to the surface, talking on the radio as he was hoisted aloft. They had a harness and cable rigged and he went out to the cliff edge, shrugging into the harness. He ignored Robert the Fox’s request that somebody else do it; they had not used explosives that much and Jonnie knew them well.
Using a winch and safety wires, they lowered him over the edge. He found it very easy to go down the cliff face now that it was slightly inclined. He signaled when he was opposite the lode and they halted the lowering winch.
Bouncing himself about with his moccasins against the cliff, he looked for the pinhole. From inside he had put a very thin drill all the way through to the outside.
There was the tiny hole! It marked the top center of the inside ring of shot holes.
The shot-holer gun bounced down to him. This was the dicey part. The gun might set off the inside blast with concussion, and if it did he’d be blown off the cliff by the explosion. But he had no time to just drill.
He made a plaited cable of blasting cord. With the shot-holer set at minimum power he made holes for pins in the lode. Getting himself adjusted up and down by the winch and with a thousand feet of chasm gaping below him, he wound the blasting cord through the pins. Presently he had a big circle on the vein.
He fixed an electric firing wire to the cord and let it pay out as they reeled him up.
He was pressed for time. It would be at most half an hour before the recon drone came over and the smoke must be cleared.
The firing wire was run to the plane. He made everyone including himself get into the plane in case more cliff went.
“Stand by!” he shouted.
He pressed the firing button.
Smoke and flame flashed on the cliff face. White quartz and country rock blasted toward the other wall of the canyon.
The ground shook.
No more cliff fell.
Jonnie took the plane up and into the height and position the recon drone would be.
They had a black hole in the cliff side. It looked like the drift had reached the lode.
They landed again to look busy with equipment. The smoke of the blast dissipated in the mountain air.
The rumble of the drone grew louder in the distance.
8
A very hungover Terl sat beside the drone receiver in his office, woodenly taking the lode scans out of the roller.
He had slept the sleep of the very drunk both last night and this morning, and he had not felt any earthquake, nor had anyone informed him of it since the compound was proof against such slight tremors, and it had been much more severe in the mountains.
What little pleasure he got in life these days was looking at the scan photos, even though they showed only a bit more waste ore around the shaft and a little activity.
He was no closer to solving the puzzle of Jayed than he had been when the fellow arrived. The endless searching and trying to figure out the reasons I.B.I. might have an interest here had cost Terl weight, had sunken in and dulled his eyes, and had put a tremor in his talons when he lifted the all-too-frequent kerbango saucepans to his mouthbones. His hatred of this planet with its accursed blue skies and white mountains deepened day by day. This routine moment at the scanner, taken only after locking all doors and checking with a debug probe, was his only hopeful instant in the day.
Terl raised the scan picture to the light. It took him a moment or two to realize it was different today. Then he quivered with abrupt shock.
The face of the cliff had avalanched.
There was no lode there.
He didn’t have yesterday’s pictures. He always tore them up promptly. He tried to estimate how much of the face was gone. The incline of
it was different. He couldn’t estimate how deep the sheer-off had cut into the cliff.
There was a hole. That would be the drift. They had been drifting along the vein.
He was about to put the photo down to think about it when he noticed the mineral side scan trace. The primary purpose of a recon drone was not surveillance. It scanned ceaselessly for minerals and recorded them on a trace. This trace was different.
Indeed it was different. He knew the lode trace: the jagged spectrum of gold. He quickly ran the trace into the analyzing machine.
Sulphur? There was no sulphur in that lode. That gold was not a sulphide gold compound. Carbon? Fluorine? What in the name of the crap nebula . . . none of these minerals were in that area!
He wondered whether he was looking at the six-common-mineral formula of what the Psychlos called “trigdite.” None of the explosives or fuels were imported from Psychlo. They were dangerous to transship and easy to make on this planet. The little factory stood about ten miles south of the compound, served by the power lines from the distant dam, and every now and then a crew went down to combine the elements into fuel cartridges and explosives. So all these elements were present on this planet.
He ran it through the scanner again to get the exact balance of the mix.
Trigdite!
Terl’s unbalanced wits instantly leaped to a wrong conclusion. Trigdite was the commonest trace one got around any Psychlo mine. It would almost be unusual not to find it as it hung in the rocks and air after blasting.
He leaped from his chair and ripped the scan photo to bits in savage paws. He threw down the fragments. He stamped on them. He pounded his fists against the wall.
The vicious rotten animals had blown the face of the cliff off! Just to spite him! Just to get even with him! They’d destroyed his lode!
He collapsed in the chair.
He heard a knocking at his door and Chirk’s worried voice, “Whatever is the matter, Terl?”
Suddenly he realized he must get control of himself. He must be very cold, very clever.
“The machine broke,” he shouted, a clever explanation.
She went away.
He felt cool, dispassionate, masterful. He knew exactly what he would do, knew it step by step. He would have to remove all possible threats to his life. He would have to cover all traces.
First he would commit the perfect crime. He had worked it all out.
Then he would release the drone and exterminate the animals.
His talons were still shaking a bit. He knew it would make him feel much better if he went out and killed the two females. He had that planned for Day 94. He would make a couple of explosive collars for the horses and then he would lead the horses up to the cage and show the females the red blob on the horses’ collars was the same as on theirs, and then he would hit a switch and explode a horse’s head off. The females would go into terror. Then he’d do it to the other horse. Then he’d pretend to let them loose but step back and blow the smaller female’s head off. The amount of terror he could generate would be delicious. He felt he needed such a boost now. Then he remembered the animal’s “psychic powers.” That animal up in the hills would know about it and might do something to avoid getting killed.
No, attractive and needful to his nerves as it might be, he must not indulge himself. He must be cool, masterful and clever.
He had better set the perfect crime in motion right this instant.
He got up with deliberate, calm determination and went about it.
9
The perfect crime began by appointing Ker the deputy head of the planet. It was all done within the hour and distributed and posted. The company rules allowed for a deputy, there was none, and it was only logical that one be appointed.
To do this, Terl used the already signed order pages he had gotten from Numph.
In the evening, Terl took Numph aside, swearing him to strict secrecy and hinting his swindle with pay and bonus funds might be at risk, and got him to make an appointment with a new employee named Snit.
He did not inform Numph that “Snit” was the cover name of Jayed of the Imperial Bureau of Investigation.
Terl impressed on Numph that no one must know of the appointment. It must take place at the hour just before midnight in the administration compound. He also didn’t mention that the offices would be deserted at that time.
Telling Numph it was all for his own protection, Terl arranged to be standing behind a curtain in Numph’s office when Jayed arrived.
With very expert care, Terl had oiled and charged an assassin gun, a silent weapon. He had also prepared two remote explosion blasting caps.
Just before the appointment time, Terl told Numph to be sure his handgun was loaded and ready in his lap. This frightened Numph a little, but Terl said, “I’ll be right behind this curtain protecting you.”
Numph was at the desk, gun in lap; Terl was behind the curtain. The hour of the appointment arrived. So far, Terl had been calm and masterful, but as he waited his nerves were playing him tricks and making his eyebones twitch. What if Jayed didn’t come?
A dreadful minute went by. Then another. Jayed was late.
Then, what a relief to Terl, the slither of footsteps in the outside hall. Of course! Jayed must have been putting a probe to the area to see whether it was free of surveillance devices. What a fool, thought Terl illogically. Terl had already done that and very thoroughly, too. There were no surveillance devices here.
The door slid quietly open and Jayed came in. His head was down. He had not even bothered to change out of his tattered ore-sorter clothes.
“You sent for me, Your Planetship,” muttered Jayed.
As he had been coached, Numph said, “Are you certain that no one knows you are here?”
“Yes, Your Planetship,” mumbled Jayed. What an act, thought Terl contemptuously.
He stepped out from behind the curtain and walked forward. “Hello, Jayed,” said Terl.
The fellow was jolted. He looked up. “Terl? Is it Terl?” I.B.I. agents were trained. They never forgot a face. Terl knew the fellow had not seen him for years and years, and then only as a security student at the mine school when Jayed had been investigating a crime there. One interview. But it didn’t fool Terl. He knew Jayed must have studied and studied the photographs and records of every executive here, and especially the security chief’s. Terl smiled disdainfully.
Then Jayed saw the assassin pistol at Terl’s side. He stepped back. He raised his mangy paws. “Wait. Terl! You don’t understand—!”
What was he trying to do? Open his shirt? Reach for a secret weapon?
It made no difference. Terl stepped into position and raised the gun, putting it on a direct line from Numph to Jayed.
Terl fired one accurate, deadly shot into Jayed’s heart.
Jayed was trying to say something. Some protest. He was dead, crumpled and mangy on the green-stained carpet.
Terl thrilled a bit with the murder. Jayed had been afraid! But this was no time for self-indulgence.
A calm, masterful Terl turned to Numph.
Numph was sitting there in terror. Terl thought it was delicious. But he had a job to do.
“Don’t worry, Numph,” said Terl. “That fellow was an agent of the I.B.I. come to smoke you out. He hasn’t. You’re safe. I have saved your life.”
Numph tremblingly laid his own gun down on the desktop. He was panting, but much relieved.
Terl walked up on the side of Numph that held the gun. He raised the assassin gun quickly.
Numph’s eyes shot wide, his mouth opened in incredulity.
Terl pushed the muzzle of the silent weapon against Numph’s head and pulled the firing catch.
The jolt knocked Numph sideways. Green blood began to pour from a wound that went all the way through his head.
A calm, completely in charge, cool Terl steadied the body and then tipped it forward so that it fell across the desk. He arranged the still twitching arm so that it
might have fired the shot. The twitches stopped. Numph was dead.
Working with precision and care, he put a remote-controlled blast cap in the barrel of Numph’s gun.
Terl produced a new weapon from his boot. He went over to Jayed’s body and put the stiffening paw around the butt on it.
Into the muzzle of Jayed’s gun, he put the second remote-control cap.
He looked around. It was all in order.
Walking casually but very silently, he went out to the nearly empty recreation hall, entering as though just coming in from outside, even taking his breathe-mask off. He ordered a saucepan of kerbango from the attendant. It was Terl’s usual routine. He was a little surprised to notice he needed it.
After a few minutes, when the yawning attendant was hinting he wanted to close up and was letting down a blind in preparation for the morrow, Terl casually put his hand in his pocket.
He pressed the first remote. Far off, there was a muzzled explosion. The attendant looked up, listening, looking toward the other end of the compound.
Terl pressed the second remote.
There was another explosion.
“That sounded like gunfire,” said the attendant.
A door slammed somewhere. Somebody else had heard it.
“It did, didn’t it,” said Terl.
He stood up. “Sounded like it was in the compound! Let’s see if we can find it.”
With the attendant in his wake, Terl started running through the berthing areas, opening doors. “Did a shot go off in here?” he was barking at startled, just-awakened Psychlos. Some of them had heard the shots, too.
“Where did it sound like it came from?” Terl was demanding of people out in the halls.
Some pointed toward the administration building. Terl thanked them and efficiently went plowing in that direction, followed by a crowd of Psychlos.
He industriously searched through the offices, turning on lights. The crowd was also searching.
Somebody yelled from Numph’s corridor, “They’re in here. They’re in here!”
Terl let a lot of fellows get there first. Then he went plowing through them. “Who is it? Where?”
They babbled at him, pointing in through the open door. The two bodies were in view.