Chasms began to open about us, and it was then that I saw the girl.

She had emerged from the burning building and edged around to the right of us, in the direction of the trail I had descended. Then she had been frozen for a time, watching our slow advance, one upon the other. Now she caught my attention as the chasm opened before her; and something cried out within my breast, for I knew that I could not reach her to save her.

... Then it broke, and I shuddered and ran toward her, for Shimbo was gone.

"Kathy!" I screamed, once, as she swayed and fell forward.

... And from somewhere Nick leaped up to the edge and seized her outfiung wrist. For a moment, I thought he would be able to hold her.

For a moment... .

It was not a matter of his lacking the necessary strength. He had plenty of that. It was a question of weight and momentum, of balance.

I heard him curse as they fell.

Then I raised up my head and turned upon Shandon, with the death-fury lighting up my backbone. I reached for my gun and recalled, as in a dream, what had become of it.

Then the falling stones caught me and pinned me as he took another step, and I felt my right leg break beneath me as I fell. I must have blacked out for an instant, but the pain brought me back to consciousness. By then he had taken another step, which brought him very near, and the world was going to hell all around me. I looked up at the stump of his hand, at those manic-depressive eyes, at the mouth opened to finally speak or laugh; and I raised my left hand, supported it with my right and performed the necessary gesture. I screamed as my fingertip flared and his head fell from his shoulders, bounced once and rolled past me--those eyes still open and staring--and followed my wife and my best friend into the chasm below. What remained thudded to the ground before me, and I stared at it for a long while before the darkness sucked me down.

VIII

When I awoke it was dawn and I was still being rained on. My right leg throbbed, about eight inches above the knee, which is bad--the place and the pain. The rain was only rain, though. The storm was over. The ground had stopped its shaking. When I was able to raise myself, however, I forgot my pain in a moment of shock.

Most of the isle was gone, sunken into Acheron, and what remained was unrecognizable as my handiwork. I lay perhaps twenty feet above the waterline, on a wide shelf of rock. The chalet was gone and a mutilated corpse lay before me. I turned away from it and considered my own predicament.

Then, as the torches of last night's dinner of blood still sputtered and blazed, befouling the morning sky, I reached out slowly and began removing the rocks that lay upon me, one by bloody one.

Pain and monotonous repetition of an action numb the mind, free it to wander.

Even if they had been real gods, what did it matter? What was it to me? Here I was still, right where I was born a thousand or so years before, in the middle of the human condition--namely, rubbish and pain. If the gods were real, their only relationship with us was to use us to play their games. Screw them all. "That includes you, too, Shimbo," I said. "Don't ever come to me again." Why the hell should I look for order where there wasn't any? Or if there was, it was an order that did not include me. I washed my hands in a puddle that had formed nearby. It felt good on my burnt finger. The water was real. So were earth, air and fire. And that was all I cared to believe in. Let it go with basics. Don't get cute and sophisticated. Basics are things you can feel and buy. If I could beat the Bay long enough I could corner the market on these commodities, and no matter how many Names were involved they would find all the property registered in my name. Then let them howl and bitch. I would own the Big Tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. I rolled away the final stone and stretched out for a moment. I was free.

Now I had nothing to do but find a power-pull and rest until afternoon, when the _Model T_ would come gliding in from the west. I opened my mind and felt one, pulsing somewhere to the left of me. When I felt stronger, I sat up and straightened my leg with both hands. When the throbbing subsided, I cut away the trouser-leg and saw that the flesh was not broken. I bound it as best I could without a splint--which wasn't very--above and below the fracture, and turned slowly, slowly, onto my stomach and hands and began crawling, just as slowly, in the direction of the pull, leaving what was left of Shandon behind me in the rain.

The going was not too bad, so long as it remained level. But when I had to pull myself up a ten-foot, forty-five degree slope, I was too beat even to curse for several minutes afterwards. The damned thing had been slippery as well as steep.

I looked back at Shandon and shook my head. It was not as if he had not known he was born to come in second. His whole life was testimony to that, poor bastard. I felt a moment's pity. He had come close to having it made. But he had come into the wrong game at the wrong time and the wrong place, like my brother, and I wondered where his head and hand lay now.

I crawled on. The power-pull was only a few hundred yards away, but I took a longer route that looked easier. One time, as I rested, I thought I heard a soft, sobbing sound. But it was gone too quickly for me to be sure.

Another time, and I heard it again, louder, coming from behind me.

I paused and waited till it came again. Then I headed toward it.

Ten minutes, and I lay before a huge boulder. It was situated at the base of a high wall of rock, and there was lots of other rubble strewn about. The muffled weeping was somewhere near. A cave seemed indicated and I did not want to waste my time exploring. So I called out:

"Hello. What's the trouble?"

Silence.

"Hello?"

Then, "Frank?"

It was the voice of the Lady Karle.

"Ho, bitch," I said. "Last night you told me to pass on to my doom. What's yours like?"

"I'm trapped in a cave, Frank. There's a rock that I can't move."

"It's a honey of a rock, honey. I'm looking at it from the other side."

"Can you get me out of here?"

"How did you get in?"

"I hid in here when the trouble started. I've tried to dig my way out, but all my nails are broken and my fingers are bleeding--and I can't seem to find any way around this stone... ."

"There doesn't seem to be a way."

"What happened?"

"Everybody's dead but you and me, and there is only a little piece of the isle left. It's raining on it now. It was quite a fight we had."

"Can you get me out of here?"

"I'll be lucky to get myself out of here--the condition I'm in."

"Are you in another cavern?"

"No, I'm on the outside."

"Then what do you mean by 'out of here'?"

"Off this damn hunk of rock and back to Homefree is what I mean."

"Then there is help coming?"

"For me," I said. "The _Model T_ will be on its way down this afternoon. I've got it programmed."

"The equipment aboard.. . Could you blast the rock, or the ground beneath it?"

"Lady Karle," I said, "I've got a busted leg, a paralyzed hand and so many sprains, strains, abrasions and contusions that I haven't even bothered counting them. I'll be lucky to get the thing going before I pass out and sleep for a week. I gave you a chance last night to be my friend again. Do you remember what you said to me?"

"Yes... ."

"Well now it's your turn."

I moved myself back on my elbows and began to crawl away.

"Frank!"

I did not reply.

"Frank! Wait! Do not go! Please!"