Shepley jumped down from the window trestle. ‘They’re mine. The Doctor will confirm it. They run in sequence after the first I gave you a week ago. I was storing them.’
Bridges cut back with an oath. ‘Whaddya mean, storing them? Is that your personal bunker out there? Since when?’ He shoved Shepley away with a broad hand and swung round on Traxel. ‘Listen, Traxel, those tapes were a fair find. I don’t see any tags on them. Every time I bring something in I’m going to have this kid claim it?’
Traxel stood up, adjusting his height so that he overreached Bridges. ‘Of course, you’re right — technically. But we have to work together, don’t we? Shepley made a mistake, we’ll forgive him this time.’ He handed the drums to Shepley, Bridges seething with barely controlled indignation. ‘If I were you, Shepley, I’d get those cashed. Don’t worry about flooding the market.’ As Shepley turned away, sidestepping Bridges, he called him back. ‘And there are advantages in working together, you know.’
He watched Shepley disappear to his room, then turned to survey the huge peeling map of the sand-sea that covered the facing wall.
‘You’ll have to strip the tombs now,’ the Old Man told Shepley later. ‘It’s obvious you’ve stumbled on something, and it won’t take Traxel five minutes to discover where.’
‘Perhaps a little longer,’ Shepley replied evenly. They stepped out of the shadow of the palace and moved away among the dunes; Bridges and Traxel were watching them from the dining-room table, their figures motionless in the light. ‘The roofs are almost covered now. The next sandstorm should bury them for good.’
‘Have you entered any of the other tombs?’
Shepley shook his head vigorously. ‘Believe me, Doctor, I know now why the time-wardens are here. As long as there’s a chance of their coming to life we’re committing murder every time we rob a tomb. Even if it’s only one chance in a million it may be all they bargained on. After all, we don’t commit suicide because the chances of life existing anywhere are virtually nil.’
Already he had come to believe that the enchantress might suddenly resurrect herself, step down from the catafalque before his eyes. While a slender possibility existed of her returning to life he felt that he too had a valid foothold in existence, that there was a small element of certainty in what had previously seemed a random and utterly meaningless universe.
Four
As the first dawn light probed through the casements, Shepley turned reluctantly from the nave. He looked back briefly at the glowing persona, suppressing the slight pang of disappointment that the expected metamorphosis had not yet occurred, but relieved to have spent as much time awaiting it as possible.
He made his way down to the old cantonment, steering carefully through the shadows. As he reached the mono-rail he now made the journey on foot, to prevent Traxel guessing that the cache lay along the route of the rail — he heard the track hum faintly in the cool air. He jumped back behind a low mound, tracing its winding pathway through the dunes.
Suddenly an engine throbbed out behind him, and Traxel’s camouflaged half-track appeared over the edge of the ridge. Its front four wheels raced and spun, and the huge vehicle tipped forward and plunged down the incline among the buried tombs, its surging tracks dislodging tons of the fine sand Shepley had so laboriously pushed by hand up the slope. Immediately several of the pavilions appeared to view, the white dust cascading off their cupolas.
Half-buried in the avalanche they had set off, Traxel and Bridges leapt from the driving cab, pointing to the pavilions and shouting at each other. Shepley darted forward, and put his foot up on the mono-rail just as it began to vibrate loudly.
In the distance the gyro-car slowly approached, the Old Man punting it along, hatless and dishevelled.
He reached the tomb as Bridges was kicking the door in with a heavy boot, Traxel behind him with a bag full of wrenches.
‘Hello, Shepley!’ Traxel greeted him gaily. ‘So this is your treasure trove.’
Shepley staggered splay-legged through the sliding sand, and brushed past Traxel as glass spattered from the window. He flung himself on Bridges and pulled the big man backwards.
‘Bridges, this one’s mine! Try any of the others; you can have them all!’
Bridges jerked himself to his feet, staring down angrily at Shepley. Traxel peered suspiciously at the other tombs, their porticos still flooded with sand. ‘What’s so interesting about this one, Shepley?’ he asked sardonically. Bridges roared and slammed a boot into the casement, knocking out one of the panels. Shepley dived on to his shoulders, and Bridges snarled and flung him against the wall. Before Shepley could duck he swung a heavy left cross to Shepley’s mouth, knocking him back on to the sand with a bloody face.
Traxel roared with amusement as Shepley lay there stunned, then knelt down, sympathetically examining Shepley’s face in the light thrown by the expanding persona within the tomb. Bridges whooped with surprise, gaping like a startled ape at the sumptuous golden mirage of the enchantress.
‘How did you find me?’ Shepley muttered thickly. ‘I double-tracked a dozen times.’
Traxel smiled. ‘We didn’t follow you, chum. We followed the rail.’ He pointed down at the silver thread of the metal strip, plainly visible in the dawn light almost ten miles away. ‘The gyro-car cleaned the rail. It led us straight here. Ah, hello, Doctor,’ he greeted the Old Man as he climbed the slope and slumped down wearily beside Shepley. ‘I take it we have you to thank for all this. Don’t worry, Doctor, I shan’t forget you.’
‘Many thanks,’ the’ Old Man said flatly. He helped Shepley to sit up, frowning at his split lips. ‘Aren’t you taking everything too seriously, Traxel? You’re becoming crazed with greed. Let the boy have this tomb. There are plenty more.’
The patterns of light across the sand dimmed and broke as Bridges plunged through the persona towards the rear of the chancel. Weakly Shepley tried to stand up, but the Old Man held him back. Traxel shrugged. ‘Too late, Doctor.’ He looked over his shoulder at the persona, ruefully shaking his head in acknowledgment of its magnificence. ‘These 10th Dynasty graves are stupendous. But there’s something curious about this one.’
He was still staring at it reflectively a minute later when Bridges emerged. ‘Boy, that was a crazy one, Traxel! For a second I thought it was a dud.’ He handed the three canisters to Traxel, who weighed two of them in one hand against the other. Bridges added ‘Kinda light, aren’t they?’
Traxel began to prise them open with a wrench. ‘Are you certain there are no more in there?’
‘Hundred per cent. Have a look yourself.’
Two of the cans were empty, the tape spools missing. The third was only half full, a mere three-inch width of tape in its centre. Bridges bellowed in pain: ‘The kid robbed us. I can’t believe it!’ Traxel waved him away and went over to the Old Man, who was staring in at the now flickering persona. The two men exchanged glances, then nodded slowly in confirmation. With a short laugh Traxel kicked at the can containing the half reel of tape, jerking the spool out on to the sand, where it began to unravel in the quietly moving air. Bridges protested but Traxel shook his head.
‘It is a dud. Go and have a close look at the image.’ When Bridges peered at it blankly he explained ‘The woman there was dead when the matrices were recorded. She’s beautiful all right — as poor Shepley here discovered — but it’s all too literally skin deep. That’s why there’s only half a can of data. No nervous system, no musculature or internal organs just a beautiful golden husk. This is a mortuary tomb. If you resurrected her you’d have an ice-cold corpse on your hands.’