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Ethan edged back into the cartons, trying to find a warm spot and failing miserably. September had
arranged some of the wood and smaller twigs on a pile of greenish-brown needles in the. center of the
door. There were also a few clumps of what looked like dried lichen but. probably weren't
Colette sat up thoughtfully, turned to her father.
"Father ... your lighter."
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"Eh?" The old man looked confused, then brightened. "Why, of course!"
He reached into a pocket inside his jacket and tossed some-thing small and shiny to September.
"That should help, Mr. September. It's not full, I'm afraid. No point in hoarding it. I can do without a
smoke for awhile." He smiled hopefully.
September flipped on the tiny, solid-fuel lighter-solid irid-ium filigree plating, Ethan noted.
"Thanks, du Kane." The old man looked pleased. "This is better than using the heater from one of the
food parcels, and easier."
The small needles caught almost instantly, and Ethan re-flected that there would be little need for much
fire-proofing on this world., The wood spat and crackled like a Chinese holiday at first, but it was going
to catch.
It would lave been easier to gather pika-ping than cut trees, but that tough ground cover held far too
much moisture to burn very well. It would have been like trying to light a wet sponge.
"You!" Walther began, having had about enough of this byplay. He was supposed to be in control of the
situation, but no one was acting like it. It made him nervous. At first he listened to them all with
puzzlement. Now he was mad.
"I'm going to blow your head off," he grinned at Septem-ber. "Drill a nice little hole right through your
skull."
September prodded the fire a little more, making sparks jump. He looked over at the door, shifted the
blaze with his foot so that it drew on the breeze seeping in past the bent edges. Then he looked idly over
at Walther.
"Not with that, you aren't."
"If you think you can bluff me ..." the kidnapper qua-vered.
"Dry up, runt. Crawl back in your hole. Can't you see I'm busy trying to keep you alive?"
Walther shook. His eyes widened and he clenched his teeth. Isis finger tensed on the hooked trigger.
"He's going to shoot you," said Colette calmly, "the poor sap."
There was a tiny flicker of green at the tip of the beamer. Then nothing.
Walther glanced at it in disbelief, pulled the trigger again. This time the glow was hardly visible. On the
third attempt, not even a hint of light came from the barrel.
With a little gasp that might have been fear or anguish, he dropped the useless weapon and scuttled back
into the shadows, favoring his bad arm. The wide, now frightened eyes never left September. '
It was quiet for a few minutes. Then September stirred the fire again.
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"Calm down, Walther. While I'd cheerfully wring your chicken-neck and toss you next to your rigid
compadre up forward, I've no intention of doing it just now. I'm tired and cold. I might feel differently
tomorrow, or the next day. Fact is, I'd've done it earlier, but you're such a pitiable excuse for a man it
hardly seemed worth the exertion. So I only broke your arm. Now don't bother me anymore."
He settled himself next to the door and concentrated on stuffing several narrow strips of shredded
seat-padding into the crack on the hinged side. The other crack he left un-blocked, to circulate air both
for them and the fire.
" Maybe we can keep a little of the wince out, anyhow," he muttered half to himself.
Colette' was rummaging among the other food cartons. She pulled one out and looked down at the
label.
"Escalloped chicken." She grunted. "Nice for us, but damned unprofitable. naive the condemned a hearty
last meal. Somebody on this shipping line has a sense of humor."
Ethan looked up in surprise. It was the closest thing she'd said to a joke since this'd happened to them. If
it had a deeper meaning, it escaped him.
She started passing out the self-heating rations and he was so hungry he finished the first before he
thought to look at the label.
September grunted as he continued to jam and press the recalcitrant material into the fissure. He looked
over at Williams, huddled quietly to one side of the fire.
"You handled yourself very well there, schoolmaster. I was kind of interested to see what you'd do."
Williams acknowledged the compliment with a barely per-ceptible nod.
"I did not expect that Mr. Fortune would be so tired or foolish as to throw a useable weapon in the
direction of that person. Therefore I assumed it must have burnt out or otherwise been rendered useless.
This is a very nice fire you've made here."
"Enjoy it and welcome, while it lasts," September an-swered. "I think we've got enough wood to last the
night, anyway. You did say the nights were shorter, young feller--me-lad?" Ethan nodded.
Ethan rolled over, trying to set himself as close to the flames as possible barring sudden immolation. He
hadn't found that warm spot. And if there was a soft piece of duralloy, that had escaped his notice as
well.
Trouble was, there were six of them to crowd around the energetic but tiny fire. That meant you couldn't
get too much of you next to it. It was impossible to remain both polite and warm. So when one end of [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]