The out-of-hearing sound seemed to buzz with it, slipping in and out
of hearing too fast for the mind to grasp it. Each time it slipped
into hearing for the fractional part of a second, it brought a flick
of agony with it. At the touch, he became almost giddy. Alarm bells
rang suddenly inside his head. The note went out of hearing again, the
giddiness passed, the alarm bells went into silence.
In the shrubbery ahead of him, a figure moved--Kus Dorken.
Two of the worst killers on Mars were here in this place. A leper. A
human. Unease came up inside Jim Ronson, a sharp stab of it. Inside his
chest a surge of pain broke through the barriers he had erected around
it, reminding him of what was there.
He had come here seeking relief for that surge of pain. Instead of
getting what he had asked for, he had been thrust into place. With two
killers and a leper and--A shout broke into his thinking. A Martian
was running along the walls, seeking for an exit. It was Te Hold.
Te Hold had recovered from the effect of the thormoline and had been
brought here. Ronson watched the Martian run along the walls, searching
desperately for a way out. Te Hold screamed as he ran but he didn't
find an exit. The screams died out as he reached the far end of the
oval, then grew stronger as he came back again upon his own steps.
Kus Dorken slid out of sight. Tal Bock was somewhere in that shrubbery
too, where, Ronson didn't know. And didn't care. A feeling of
hopelessness was coming up in him. He moved back to the leper, squatted
on the sand beside the man, asked a question.
The leper's eyes flicked at him in response but there was no other
answer. An ecstacy was in the eyes now. The leper was so lost in this
ecstacy that such things as grunted noises from a member of an alien
race made no impression on him. Ronson envied him. The leper was close
to death but he was so lost in some inner ecstacy that death was
unimportant to him.
"Did Les Ro's Messenger promise you that you would be cured of your
leprosy?" Ronson asked, persisting.
The leper nodded. Again his hand waved in the "Go away," gesture.
"Go away and let you die in peace?" Ronson said.
"Just go away," the leper answered.
Ronson rose to his feet, angry. What farce was being perpetrated here?
What--The super-sonic note came into hearing. Pain stabbed at his chest.
He lifted his hand involuntarily. The sight of the dial on his wrist
watch forced itself through the pulses of pain.
As a part of his research into cell structure, Ronson had worked
extensively with radioactivity. In order to protect himself, he had had
a microscopically small radiation detector built into the watch itself.
Three tiny glow tubes were set into the dial. If the green tube glowed,
radiation was present but was safe. If the amber light glowed, be wary.
If the red light glowed, _get out fast_!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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