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back. Nothing seemed worthwhile, nothing except floating away, far from...'
`Shut up and-listen!' Burton said. `The Ethicals have men
everywhere looking for me. I can't afford to have you alive, do you realize
that? I can't trust you. Even if you were a friend, you couldn't be trusted.
You're a gummer'
Goring giggled, stepped up to Burton and tried to put his arms
around Burton's neck. Burton pushed him back so hard that he staggered
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up against the table and only kept from falling by clutching its edges.
`This is very amusing,' Goring said. `The day I got here, a man
asked me if I'd seen you. He described you in detail and gave your name. I
told him I knew you well too well, and that I hoped I'd never see you
again, not unless I had you in my power, that is. He said I should notify him
if I saw you again. He'd make it worth my while.' Burton wasted no time. He
strode up to Goring and seized him with both hands. They were small and
delicate, but Goring winced with pain.
He said, `What're you going to do, kill me again?'
`Not if you tell me the name of the man who asked you about me.
Otherwise...'
`Go ahead and kill me!' Goring said. `So what? I'll wake up
somewhere else, thousands of miles from here, far out of your reach.'
Burton pointed at a bamboo box in a corner of the hut. Guessing that it held
Goring's supply of gum, he said, `And you'd also wake up without that!
Where else could you get so much on such short notice?'
'Damn you!' Goring shouted, and tried to tear himself loose to get to
the box.
`Tell me his name!' Burton said. `Or I'll take the gum and throw it in
The River!'
`Agneau. Roger Agneau. He sleeps in a but just outside the
Roundhouse.'
`I'll deal with you later,' Burton said, and chopped Goring on the
side of the neck with the edge of his palm.
He turned, and he saw a man crouching outside the entrance to the
hut. The man straightened up and was off. Burton ran out after him; in a
minute both were in the tall pines and oaks of the hills. His quarry
disappeared in the waist-high grass.
Burton slowed to a trot, caught sight of a patch of white starlight on
bare skin and was after the fellow. He hoped that the Ethical would not kill
himself at once, because he had a plan for extracting information if he
could knock him out at once. It involved hypnosis, but he would have to
catch the Ethical first. It was possible that the man had some sort of
wireless imbedded in his body and was even now in communication with
his compatriots wherever They were. If so, They would come in Their
flying machines, and he would be lost.
He stopped. He had lost his quarry and the only thing to do now
was to lose Alice and the others and run. Perhaps this time they should
take to the mountains and hide there for a while.
But first he would go to Agneau's hut. There was little chance that
Agneau would be there, but it was certainly worth the effort to make sure.
21
Burton arrived within sight of the but just in time to glimpse the back
of a man entering it. Burton circled to come up from the side where the
darkness of the hills and the trees scattered along the plain gave him some
concealment. Crouching, he ran until he was at the door to the hut.
He heard a loud cry some distance behind him and whirled to see
Goring staggering toward him. He was crying out in German to Agneau,
warning him that Burton was just outside. In one hand he held a long spear
which he brandished at the Englishman.
Burton turned and hurled himself against the flimsy bamboo-slat
door. His shoulder drove into it and broke it from its wooden hinges. The
door flew inward and struck Agneau, who had been standing just behind it.
Burton; the door, and Agneau fell to the floor with Agneau under the door.
Burton rolled off the door, got up, and jumped again with both bare
feet on the wood. Agneau screamed and then became silent. Burton
heaved the door to one side to find his quarry unconscious and bleeding
from the nose. Good! Now if the noise didn't bring the watch and if he could
deal quickly enough with Goring, he could carry out his plan.
He looked up just in time to see the starlight on the long black
object hurtling at him.
He threw himself to one side, and the spear plunged into the dirt
floor with a thump. Its shaft vibrated like a rattlesnake preparing to strike.
Burton stepped into the doorway, estimated Goring's distance, and
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charged. His assegai plunged into the belly of the German. Goring threw
his hands up in the air, screamed, and fell on his side. Burton hoisted
Agneau's limp body on his shoulder and carried him out of the hut.
By then there were shouts from the Roundhouse. Torches were
flaring up; the sentinel on the nearest watchtower was bellowing. Goring
was sitting on the ground, bent over, clutching the shaft close to the wound.
He looked gape-mouthed at Burton and said, `You did it again!
You...' He fell over on his face, the death rattle in his throat.
Agneau returned to a frenzied consciousness. He twisted himself
out of Burton's grip and fell to the ground. Unlike Goring, he made no
noise. He had as much reason to be silent as Burton more perhaps.
Burton was so surprised that he was left standing with the fellow's loin-
towel clutched in his hand. Burton started to throw it down but felt
something stiff and square within the lining of the towel. He transferred the
cloth to his left hand, yanked the assegai from the corpse, and ran after
Agneau.
The Ethical had launched one of the bamboo canoes beached
along the shore. He paddled furiously out into the starlit waters, glancing
frequently behind him. Burton raised the assegai behind his shoulder and
hurled it. It was a short, thick-shafted weapon, designed for infighting and
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