The Short Stories of Edmond Hamilton: Volume II by Edmond Hamilton

Author:Edmond Hamilton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Deadtree Publishing
Published: 2018-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER IX

It was cold and dark and infinitely sad. Hyrst wandered through the rooms, feeling like a ghost, thinking like one. Everything had been removed from the buildings. The living quarters were now mere cubicular tombs for a lot of memories, absolutely bare of any human or familiar touch. It felt very strange to Hyrst. He kept telling himself that fifty years had passed, but he could not believe it. It seemed only a few months since MacDonald's death, months occupied by investigation and trial and the raging, futile anguish of the unjustly accused. The long interval of the pseudo-death was no more than a night's sleep, to a mind unconscious of passing time. Now it seemed that Saul and Landers should still be here, and there should be lights and warmth and movement.

There was nothing. He could not bring himself to stay in the living quarters. He went into one of the storerooms and sat on a concrete buttress and waited. It was a long and dreadful wait. During it all the emotional storms occasioned by the murder and its aftermath passed through his mind. Scenes with Saul and Landers. Scenes with the investigators, with MacDonald's family, with lawyers and reporters. Scenes with Elena. The whole terrible nightmare, leading inevitably to that culminating moment when the door of the airlock opened and he joined the sleepers on the plain. When it was all over Hyrst felt shaken and exhausted, but calm. The face of Vernon burned brightly in his mind's eye.

Without bothering to open the steel-shuttered windows, he watched the two young men force their way out of the hoist tower. He watched them run to their ship and chatter excitedly over their radio. By the time, much later, that Bellaver's yacht came screaming down to the landing field on a flaming burst of jets, he could watch it with almost the cool detachment of a spectator. He was careful to keep his shields up tight against Vernon, and he did not think the other Lazarite would be likely to look for him. Vernon seemed to be fully occupied with Bellaver.

"What else would they be stealing, you fool? You should have, killed Hyrst before, when you had the chance."

"Somebody had to take the blame for MacDonald. Anyway, you had him aboard the Happy Dream. Why didn't you hang onto him?"

"Don't get insolent with me, Vernon. I can turn you over to the police anytime, for any one of a hundred things."

"Not without tipping your hand, Bellaver."

"It would be worth it." A string of foul names, delivered in a furious scream. "You couldn't locate the Titanite, but they did, just as soon as they got hold of Hyrst."

"All right, Mr. God Almighty Bellaver, turn me in. But if it was the Titanite they took, you haven't a chance of finding that starship without me."

"You haven't done very well at it so far."

"In the excitement, they may get careless. But it's up to you."

More foul language, but Bellaver did not repeat his threat.

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