“You don’t seem upset,” Carter commented.
“Why should I be? You are the ones who came expecting to find gold and emeralds. Myself, I am an archaeologist. Money I have already. I searched for Paititi in hopes of securing enough material for a monograph or two, perhaps even a cover of the American Journal of Archaeology. A validation of my choice of profession. Something to shove in my parents’ faces that screams, ‘I am a success without you, without family connections!’” He indicated the crumbling wall, the isolated petroglyphs.
“This may look like nothing to you, but to me it is real treasure. An undiscovered, undescribed site. Already I suspect the presence of non-Inca influences. Chimu, perhaps, or even Moche. I expect to find artifacts, but they need not be gold.”
“Then why treat us like this?” Ashwood struggled against her bonds. “We’ll leave quietly and you can poke around here all you want.”
“I will probably do just that … eventually,” he told her. “For a while, though, I must insist that you remain, until I have quantified sufficient work for preliminary publication. I cannot chance you returning to Lima to blab to the first reporter you encounter. Forgive my caution, but this is the discovery of a lifetime. I cannot put it at risk. One word would be sufficient to bring an avalanche of would-be treasure-hunters down on this place, who would quickly destroy anything of scientific value.
“Meanwhile you must bear with me. Try to relax. You will be properly looked after and when I am finished you will be released. Until then I fear you must indulge my paranoia.”
Fewick had more to say but the conversation was interrupted by violent yowling and spitting from the vicinity of his baggage.
“Now what?” Fewick directed his query toward the noise. “Moe, what’s got into you?”
“Moe?” Ashwood gaped at their captor. “You hauled that big tom all the way from Georgia?”
“Of course. Moe accompanies me wherever I go.” Fewick motioned to one of his porters. “Well, don’t just stand there. Let him out.”
Nodding, the porter moved to open the lid of a box which had been strapped to his pack. The bulky four-legged shape which emerged took off in the direction of Carter’s tent.
“Macha!” Carter yelled in sudden realization.
The tom hit the front of the tent like a rusty cannonball as Fewick stared at Carter. “You also have a cat with you?”
“I found her in Cuzco,” Carter said anxiously as spitting, yowling sounds came from the tent. “I thought she’d be safer with me and that after we finished here I might be able to get her back into the States.”
As they stared, Carter’s cat emerged from the back of the tent and raced off into the forest. The tom followed a moment later, in active pursuit.
“A fellow admirer of felines. My opinion of you, Mr. Carter, is elevated. A ‘her,’ you say.” He grinned. “I do not think Moe will damage her.”
“What if they don’t come back?”
“Moe will. While I cannot vouch for your animal I would not worry myself overmuch. If you have been feeding her she will surely return. They are simply being cats. They will sort things out between themselves, without our unnecessary intervention in their affairs.
“Now, if you will excuse me I shall begin my work.” After handing the pistol to one of his men and leaving him to watch the prisoners, Fewick extracted a small camera from one pack and began taking pictures of the wall, beginning at one end and working his way methodically toward the other.
“If he does find any gold we’re liable to be in for trouble,” Ashwood muttered after lunch. “That’s what worries me. He could shoot us and leave us here and no one would ever find the bodies.”
“Take it easy, Marjorie,” Carter told her. “I don’t think Fewick’s the killing type.”
“Is that so? Well, let me tell you, cuddles, that where gold is concerned all bets are off.”
“And how would you know anything about that?” Carter inquired challengingly.
“Because I’ve seen what happens when folks have the chance to acquire large amounts of unearned income.” She was quiet for a long time, as if considering whether to say anything more.
Finally she looked up at him, twisting against her restraints. “I don’t suppose y’all ever heard of the Breckenridge Massacre?”
“No.” He eyed her strangely.
“I ain’t surprised. That was back in the … well, too long ago for you to remember. There was a bank, and a holdup that didn’t work out the way it was supposed to. A couple of dumb local yokels were in the wrong place at the wrong time and got their stupid selves killed. The papers called it the Breckenridge Massacre. One fool went to prison, the other got himself caught under an eighteen-wheeler tryin’ to outrun the cops.
“The only one who got away was the gal waitin’ back at the motel with three first-class airline tickets to Brazil. When she saw on the news that her boyfriend had not only screwed up but been turned into ground chuck on U.S. 180, she beat it back to Dallas, cashed in the tickets, and lit out for parts unknown. They never did find her.”
Carter stared numbly at his companion.
“Yeah, me. The cash from those tickets gave me a stake. I’d always been pretty handy with a sewing machine. I ended up in L.A., learned how to use a laser cutter and computer designer, and wandered into the film business. It keeps me movin’ around, which lets me sleep easier. I think the Texas cops gave up on me years ago anyway, but I don’t take any chances. Life’s worked out pretty good for me.” She shook her head at the memories.
“That was … thirty-five years ago, sweet man. Been clean ever since. But before that I had a pretty rough time of it. I once saw a guy shoot another for the ten bucks in his pocket. So I know how large sums of money you don’t have to work for can change folks.” She looked back over her shoulder.
“I don’t give a damn how much cash Fewick says he has. If he finds anything convertible I think we’d better start worryin’.”
“Did you ever shoot anybody, Marjorie?” Carter asked her quietly.
Her gaze didn’t swerve from his. “Let’s just say that if you can get that gun away from Fewick, I’ll be able to make good use of it.”
With so much reality to monitor and so few Shihararaneth able to undertake the task it wasn’t surprising that it had taken O’lal so long to resolve the pattern of the Renegade’s disruption. With nothing to begin with save constantly shifting suspicions and suggestions of abnormality it was a wonder she had been able to construct a trail at all.
She still did not know the Renegade’s precise intentions. Those remained far more nebulous than his purpose. But to a Shihararaneth maliciousness was a physical reality which could be sensed and measured, and there was no denying the degree to which it dominated the Renegade’s actions.
Patient observation and calculation had paid off. It was clear she had surprised him, just as it developed that he was stronger than she’d anticipated. That did not matter. It was not necessary that she defeat him, only that she disrupt his plans.
His astonishment at her appearance was simultaneous proof of his vulnerability and arrogance. Obviously he had expected his manipulations to proceed undisturbed. The confrontation had rattled him, unsettled his intricate construction. No matter what happened now, his plans could not move forward in the intended vacuum.
Instinctively he’d attacked. She’d reacted with the skill of long practice, leaping easily between two colliding planes of existence, slipping beyond his grasp before he could so much as touch her. To a Monitor gravity is but a minor encumbrance. It did not slow her.
She wove and danced through glistening spaces, perceptions wide open, avoiding both his frustrated grasp and the isolated tendrils of intrusive mass which occasionally brushed against her being. He struck and she pirouetted neatly beyond his reach, sliding down a viscous hint of shining place whose existence he had not suspected. Knowing this world’s geometry better than he, she could continue the dance until she exhausted him. Nor could he reveal himself on a physical plane without risking damage from the primitive fauna around them.
