by E. C. Tubb
"The ring," he said, and raised himself on one elbow. "The secret, what-" He broke off as a thin, shrilling note echoed over the trees, the entire region. It was sweet, high and painful in its keening poignancy. "Look!" Yalung reared up shy;wards to rest on his heels. "The ring!"
On the flat surface of the stone shone fifteen points of brilliance.
"A sonic trigger," gasped the Kha'tung fighter. "The cor shy;rect sequence of the affinity twin. And you didn't know. You didn't know!" He fell, lips twisted in an ironic smile. "All I had to do was to kill you and take the ring. I had a dozen opportunities but I used none of them. I even saved you from the beast on Joy. I thought you were valuable, that you would have known that-"
He died as a second chime rang through the air. The summons to the guardians which announced the coming of a vessel to the Place.
The handler was an old man with silvered hair and lines meshed thickly on his face. He stood at the foot of the ramp, his eyes misted with gentleness.
"This job doesn't pay much," he said. "But it has its com shy;pensations."
"The pilgrims?" Dumarest looked at the column filing down the avenue. Their progress was slow, those who could not walk being carried by those barely able to hobble. Leading them was the enigmatic figure of a guardian. Others stood between the sparing trees. Watching? Counting? It was impossible to know.
"I was one of them once," said the handler. "Twenty years ago. I had a malignancy of the blood impossible to cure. Shrine was my last hope." He breathed deeply, inflating his chest. "I was cured," he said quietly. "It seems to me that I owe something to all those seeking health."
"It's a nice thought," said Dumarest.
"You crashed, you say?"
"That's right."
"You were lucky," said the handler. "And did you-?"
"Yes," said Dumarest quickly. "I visited the Place. And," he added slowly. "I think I gained what I had been lacking."
Gained and lost, both within the span of hours. From where he stood Dumarest could see the spot where they had slept, where Lallia had been murdered and where Yalung had died. The bodies were gone, lifted away by the birds to be disposed of somewhere, perhaps fed to the spine-trees. As others would be disposed of, those who would die, as some must die, at the center of the clearing.
He looked again down the avenue. The dying sun threw a ruby light in the natural arch, a dim, mysterious, lumi shy;nescence in which the slowly moving band of pilgrims ap shy;peared to be walking through water, marching into the gate of another world. A concentration of pain and suffering, of desperation and hopefulness. Did the entity within the wrecked vessel live on such Para physical emanations? Did it need the psychic energy of those who came to rest their hands on the mound? Giving, perhaps as a by-product, some shy;thing in return?
"They go," mused the handler. "They crawl and skip and drag themselves down to the Place. And when they come back, those that do, they march like men. They fall into the ship and sleep solid for ten, twelve hours. Sometimes longer. And when they wake you can see paradise in their eyes."
"A good feeling," said Dumarest.
"The best." The handler sucked in his breath as a cone of coruscating brilliance leaped from the surrounding area. "It won't be long now."
His face was livid in the glow. Dumarest turned, looking at the radiance, wondering what it could be. The discharge of natural energies? A waste product of the alien entity? Or was it, perhaps, the visible by-product of a supralight message aimed at some distant galaxy?
"They'll be coming back soon," said the handler. "And we'll take them home."
"And me?" Dumarest looked at the man. "You can give me passage?"
"If you can pay."
"To outside the Web?"
"To Thermyle; you can get an outward-bound ship from there." The handler hesitated. "We won't be going direct and you know the system. But if you're short of money you can ride Low."
"I've got money," said Dumarest.
He had Yalung's pouch of precious gems and they would carry him to where he wanted to go. To a flaring red point on a pictured galaxy or as near as he could get to the sector in which it was held. It would be a long journey and there would be too much time to remember what might have been. Of a girl with lustrous black tresses, the pressure of her arms, the promise of her body, the future they would now never share.
"That's all right then," said the handler. "Just you?"
"Yes."
"Then you're alone?"
"Yes," said Dumarest bleakly. "I'm alone."
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