Revenge -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
Haven grabbed the collar of his tunic. "All right," he said. "All
right, you're just the man I'm looking for. What did you mean, glacier
move?"
"Glacier move. You know. You know!" The Centaurian offered a tentative
smile.
"No, damn you, I don't know!" Haven whispered furiously, dragging the
Centaurian into the stairwell.
"Glacier on mine then. Glacier not on mine now. All city know."
"Then where is it?"
"Glacier is river of ice. Glacier flow. Glacier one, two miles from
city now."
"_That_ glacier?" demanded Haven, horrified at the thought that Drexell
Tolliver's body was within a mile or two of five million people, even
if they were Centaurians.
"That glacier, yes."
"Take me there," commanded Haven, all but strangling the little
Centaurian with his big hands.
"I take you," the blue man managed. His azure skin had gone a pale sky
blue with fright. They're all the same, thought Haven. If you can't buy
them you can scare the hell out of them.
"Then let's get started," Haven said.
* * * * *
A team of six-legged creatures drew the ice-sled silently through the
night. They climbed steadily into the ice hills. Centauri had set, but
little Proxima, Centauri VII's tiny second sun, was on the horizon and
gave dusky light perhaps twice the brightness of Earth night at full
moon. The little waiter, whose name Haven didn't know, drove the team
in utter silence. The runners slid across the ice with scrapings and
whisperings. The long, surprisingly bright night shadows fled before
them. Haven was wrapped to the ears in furs and it was cold here in
the ice hills, but he sweated with impatience. Sure, he told himself.
You'll find the body. You'll see the body. But what will you do then.
It took hardly more than moments to reach the huge, amazingly
transparent glacier. Fifteen years, thought Haven. Fifteen years is
nothing to this river of ice. Fifteen hundred years--and it will still
hold Drexell Tolliver's body, perfectly preserved. Drexell Tolliver's
body, the wound inflicted by Haven's knife, the knife still there, in
the dead man's side with Haven's fingerprints on the haft because for
the first and only time in his life Haven had been frightened and thus
careless....
Haven climbed off the sled and carefully skirted the upper edge of the
crevasse he remembered so well. The bottom was in shadow. It was two
hundred feet down, certainly, if not more. Haven shuddered. It would
have been so easy for a man to slip. Why hadn't he thought of that,
fifteen years ago? The crevasse had been here. He could have pushed
Tolliver, instead of knifing him.
The waiter led the way at a brisk pace, his animal-pad-soled boots
holding on the slick ice, as Haven's did. Finally, the waiter held up
his hand:
"Here," he said. "Here Tolliver."
"You know?" Haven gasped. He had never doubted it for a minute, but
somehow the two words--here Tolliver--had nevertheless startled him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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