Bison glanced at Silk; Silk nodded, and Bison said, “I must tell you, Generalissimo, that the calde and I saw General Mint in his glass before we sat down. The calde had a place set for her originally as a sort of signal, I’d say. He wanted to show that we hoped she was still alive.”

“That she would return to us soon,” Silk added.

“Now that chair,” Bison gestured, “is more than a symbol. Calde Silk got a monitor to show us what it had seen before we questioned it, and it was General Mint, with four other people and some soldiers and animals hurrying along a tunnel. She may join us before the evening’s over.”

Siyuf pursed her lips. “If your Mint was in the hands of soldiers, is not that the enemy?”

Saba put down her wineglass. “Vironese soldiers protected the calde when some private guards tried to kill him, sir. I mentioned that…” Her voice altered and her mouth assumed a ghastly grin. “I found her, Silk. She was in the market. She bought a little animal that talks. She’s taking it where they kill them.”

Chapter 10 — A Life for Pas

Sergeant Sand had scrambled up first. Maytera Mint, exhausted and practically suffocated by the ash that filled the air of the tunnel, thought it strange that it should be large enough to admit his bulky steel body. She had purified the altar of the old manteion on Sun Street many times, and although she told herself that she must surely be mistaken, it seemed to her that its chute had been scarcely half as large as this one.

“These victims, eh?” Remora coughed, eyeing the yearling tunnel gods Eland had taken charge of. “For, hem!, Pas. His — er — ah — ghost?”

Schist nodded. “That’s what the Prolocutor says.”

“You’re saying that Pas is dead.” Maytera Mint was by no means sure she believed such a thing possible, still less that it had taken place. “He’s come back as a ghost?”

“That’s it, General.”

Shale added, “We’re not sayin’ it happened, but that’s what he says.” He jerked his head toward the chute into which Sand’s heels had vanished. “Sarge believes him. So do I, I guess.”

Urus edged nearer Maytera Mint. “They’re abram, lady, all these chems Look, we’re bios, all right? You ’n me, ’n Spider ’n Eland here. Even the long butcher.”

She could scarcely make out Urus’s features in the ash-dimmed light; yet she could picture his wheedling expression only too vividly.

“We got to stick, us bios. Got to make a knot, don’t we? The way they’re talkin’, we’ll all be cold.”

“Good riddance,” Spider muttered.

Sand’s voice ended the conversation, hollow-sounding as it echoed down the chute overhead. “The augur next. Hand him up.”

Remora was peering up the chute. “It’s a manteion, eh?”

“Big one, Patera. Pretty dark, too. Wait a minute.”

Slate had crouched at Remora’s feet. “I’m goin’ to grab you by the legs, see, Patera? I’m goin’ to lift you up ’n in. Get your arms up over your head to steer yourself. When you’re in good, I’ll push on your feet ’n get you up as far as I can. Maybe you’ll have to wiggle up a little more before Sarge can grab hold of you.” Abruptly the dark mouth of the chute became a rectangle of light.

It is big, Maytera Mint thought; it has to be. They have a lot of victims, burn a cartload of wood at every sacrifice.

Sand’s voice returned. “They got oil lamps here. I lit a couple for you.”

“Thank you!” Remora called. “My most, um, deepest — ah — sincere appreciation, my son.” He looked down at Slate. “I am ready, eh? Lift away.”

“You’ll be fine, Your Eminence,” Maytera Mint assured him.

“You think — ah — fear me apprehensive.” Remora smiled, his teeth visible in the light from the chute. “To, um, revisit the whorl of light, Maytera, I should — umph!”

Slate had grasped his ankles and was rising. For a moment Remora swayed dangerously and it seemed he must fall; but Spider pushed his hips to right him, and in another second his arms and head were out of sight.

“Here he comes, Sarge!”

“What it is, see,” Urus was nearly at Maytera Mint’s ear, “is they think they ought to give Pas somethin’. He put that in their heads, your jefe did.”

“His Cognizance.” Coughing, she turned to face Urus. “I cannot imagine His Cognizance in these horrible tunnels, though I know he was here with the calde.”

“Me neither. Only, see—”

“Be quiet.” Maytera Mint was studying Eland’s beasts. “How are we going to get these animals up there, Slate?”

“I been thinkin’ about that,” Slate said. “Watch this.”

Crouching again, he sprang into the chute and scrambled up.

“You two’d better stay here to lift the general and me up,” Spider told Schist and Shale.

“Sure thing.” With Slate gone, Schist leaned back against the shiprock wall. “We’ll pass ’em up just like the slug guns. You’ll see.”

Shale indicated the opening with a contemptuous gesture. “He’s buckin’ for another stripe, Slate is. We used to have this corporal from ‘H’ Company, only he bought it in the big fight with the talus the other day. This time probably they’ll promote from inside, and Slate figures he’ll cop it.”

Slate’s voice came from the chute. “Knock off jawin’ down there ’n pass them guns.”

Schist said, “Sure thing,” and lifted the bundled slug guns into the chute. Shale explained, “I strapped ’em together with one of the slings. Makes ’em easier to handle.”

The bundle of guns vanished amid scrapings and bumpings. Schist tilted his head back and to the left to grin at Maytera Mint. “He’s hangin’ in there, see? Sarge’s got his feet.”

Spider coughed. “Maybe you’d like to go next, General.”

“I would,” she confessed, “but I’ll go last. It is my place as the senior officer present.”

“I don’t think you can jump up there,” Schist objected.

She turned on him. “ ‘I don’t think you can jump up there, sir.’ Or ‘General.’ I give you your choice, Private, which is more than I ought to give you.”

“Yes, sir. Only I don’t think you can, sir, and I’d be glad to stay down here and help you, sir.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Maytera Mint turned to the other soldier. “Private Shale.”

“Yes, sir!” Shale snapped to attention.

“You were very ingenious with that sling. After you and Private Schist have passed these beasts up and helped Spider, Urus, and this other convict—”

“Eland,” Eland put in, speaking for the first time since they had reached this darkest stretch of tunnel.

“Thank you. And Eland to climb up, you will contrive a rope of slug gun slings, making a loop at the bottom into which I can put one foot. Can you do that?”

“Sure thing, sir.”

“Good. Do it. Then you can pull me up. Last.”

Spider ventured, “You’re goin’ to be down here all alone, for a minute or two, anyhow.”

“These—” She was wracked by a paroxysm of coughing. “These animals. I don’t know what to call them.”

“Bufes,” Eland supplied.

“Thank you.” Turning her head, she spat. “I will not call them gods. That must stop. More bufes may come, though I hope they won’t. I pray they won’t. But if they do I’ll shoot them. If I don’t see them in time, or don’t aim well, I will die.”

“I’ll stay with you,” Spider told her.

She shook her head. “Only one—”

From the chute, Slate called, “Gimme a god.” Shale lifted a squirming beast over his head and thrust its hindquarters into the opening in the ceiling; its eyes were wild, and blood ran from the sinews binding its muzzle.

“I dunno if I could of trained ’em as big as that,” Eland muttered, “only it seems like a shame to waste ’em.”

“I caught ’em, sir,” Shale explained to Maytera Mint. “The bios and me were back by that dead bio you left behind. We knew the smell would fetch ’em.”

Schist added, “That was why Slate and Sarge jumped out of the dirt when they did, probably, sir. Sarge thought you might scare ’em off if you went back for the dead one.”