"I'll stay here," said Henry, stooping beside him. "You go doit."

I started up the final slope.

I swung and I cut and I blasted and I crawled. Some of the ice hadbeen melted, the rocks scorched.

Nothing came to oppose me. The static had gone with the dragon.There was silence, and darkness between stars.

I climbed slowly, still tired from that last sprint, butdetermined not to stop.

All but sixty feet of the entire world lay beneath me, and heavenhung above me, and a rocket winked overhead. Perhaps it was thepressmen, with zoom cameras.

Fifty feet....

No bird, no archer, no angel, no girl.

Forty feet....

I started to shake. It was nervous tension. I steadied myself,went on.

Thirty feet...and the mountain seemed to be swaying now.

Twenty-five...and I grew dizzy, halted, took a drink.

Then click, click, my pick again.

Twenty....

Fifteen....

Ten....

I braced myself against the mountain's final assault, whatever itmight be.

Five...

Nothing happened as I arrived.

I stood up. I could go no higher.

I looked at the sky, I looked back down. I waved at the blazingrocket exhaust.

I extruded the pole and attached the flag.

I planted it, there where no breezes would ever stir it. I cut inmy communicator, said, "I'm here."

No other words.

It was time to go back down and give Henry his chance, but I lookeddown the western slope before I turned to go.

The lady was winking again. Perhaps eight hundred feet below, thered light shone. Could that have been what I had seen from the townduring the storm, on that night, so long ago?

I didn't know and I had to.

I spoke into the communicator.

"How's Mallardi doing?"

"I just stood up," he answered. "Give me another half hour, andI'm coming up myself."

"Henry," I said. "Should he?"

"Gotta take his word how he feels," said Lanning.

"Well," I said, "then take it easy. I'll be gone when you gethere. I'm going a little way down the western side. Something I wantto see."

"What?"

"I dunno. That's why I want to see."

"Take care."

"Check."

The western slope was an easy descent. As I went down it, Irealized that the light was coming from an opening in the side of themountain.

Half an hour later, I stood before it.

I stepped within and was dazzled.

I walked toward it and stopped. It pulsed and quivered and sang.

A vibrating wall of flame leapt from the floor of the cave,towered to the roof of the cave.

It blocked my way, when I wanted to go beyond it.

She was there, and I wanted to reach her.

I took a step forward, so that I was only inches away from it. Mycommunicator was full of static and my arms of cold needles.

It did not bend toward me, as to attack. It cast no heat.

I stared through the veil of fires to where she reclined, her eyesclosed, her breast unmoving.

I stared at the bank of machinery beside the far wall.

"I'm here," I said, and I raised my pick.

When its point touched the wall of flame someone took the lid offhell, and I staggered back, blinded. When my vision cleared, theangel stood before me.

"_You may not pass here_," he said.

"She is the reason you want me to go back?" I asked.

"_Yes. Go back._"

"Has she no say in the matter?"

"_She sleeps. Go back._"

"So I notice. Why?"

"_She must. Go back._"

"Why did she herself appear to me and lead me strangely?"

"_I used up the fear-forms I knew. They did not work. I led youstrangely because her sleeping mind touches upon my own workings. Itdid so especially when I borrowed her form, so that it interfered withthe directive. Go back._"

"What is the directive?"

"_She is to be guarded against all things coming up the mountain.Go back._"

"Why? Why is she guarded?"

"_She sleeps. Go back._"

The conversation having become somewhat circular at that point, Ireached into my pack and drew out the projector. I swung it forwardand the angel melted. The flames bent away from my outstretchedhand. I sought to open a doorway in the circle of fire.

It worked, sort of.

I pushed the projector forward, and the flames bent and bent andbent and finally broke. When they broke, I leaped forward. I made itthrough, but my protective suit was as scorched as Mallardi's.

I moved to the coffinlike locker within which she slept.

I rested my hands on its edge and looked down.

She was as fragile as ice.

In fact, she was ice....

The machine came alive with lights then, and I felt her somberbedstead vibrate.

Then I saw the man.

He was half sprawled across a metal chair beside the machine.

He, too, was ice. Only his features were gray, were twisted. Hewore black and he was dead and a statue, while she was sleeping and astatue.

She wore blue, and white....

There was an empty casket in the far corner....

But something was happening around me. There came a brighteningof the air. Yes, it was air. It hissed upward from frosty juts inthe floor, formed into great clouds. Then a feeling of heat occurredand the clouds began to fade and the brightening continued.

I returned to the casket and studied her features.

I wondered what her voice would sound like when/if she spoke. Iwondered what lay within her mind. I wondered how her thinkingworked, and what she liked and didn't like. I wondered what her eyeshad looked upon, and when.

I wondered all these things, because I could see that whateverforces I had set into operation when I entered the circle of fire werecausing her, slowly, to cease being a statue.

She was being awakened.

I waited. Over an hour went by, and still I waited, watching her.She began to breath. Her eyes opened at last, and for a long time shedid not see.

Then her bluefire fell on me.

"Whitey," she said.

"Yes."

"Where am I...?"

"In the damnedest place I could possibly have found anyone."

She frowned. "I remember," she said and tried to sit up.

It didn't work. She fell back.

"What is your name?"

"Linda," she said. Then, "I dreamed of you, Whitey. Strangedreams....How could that be?"

"It's tricky," I said.

"I knew you were coming," she said. "I saw you fighting monsterson a mountain as high as the sky."

"Yes, we're there now."

"H-have you the cure?"

"Cure? What cure?"

"Dawson's Plague," she said.

I felt sick. I felt sick because I realized that she did notsleep as a prisoner, but to postpone her death. She was sick.

"Did you come to live on this world in a ship that moved fasterthan light?" I asked.

"No," she said. "It took centuries to get here. We slept thecold sleep during the journey. This is one of the bunkers." Shegestured toward the casket with her eyes. I noticed her cheeks hadbecome bright red.

"They all began dying--of the plague," she said. "There was nocure. My husband--Carl--is a doctor. When he saw that I had it, hesaid he would keep me in extreme hypothermia until a cure was found.Otherwise, you only live for two days, you know."

Then she stared up at me, and I realized that her last two wordshad been a question.

I moved into a position to block her view of the dead man, who Ifeared must be her Carl. I tried to follow her husband's thinking.He'd had to hurry, as he was obviously further along than she hadbeen. He knew the colony would be wiped out. He must have loved herand been awfully clever, both--awfully resourceful. Mostly, though, hemust have loved her. Knowing that the colony would die, he knew itwould be centuries before another ship arrived. He had nothing thatcould power a cold bunker for that long. But up here, on the top ofthis mountain, almost as cold as outer space itself, power wouldn't benecessary. Somehow, he had got Linda and the stuff up here. Hismachine cast a force field around the cave. Working in heat andatmosphere, he had sent her deep into the cold sleep and then preparedhis own bunker. When he dropped the wall of forces, no power would benecessary to guarantee the long, icy wait. They could sleep forcenturies within the bosom of the Gray Sister, protected by a colonyof defense-computer. This last had apparently been programmedquickly, for he was dying. He saw that it was too late to join her.He hurried to set the thing for basic defense, killed the force field,and then went his way into that Dark and Secret Place. Thus it hurledits birds and its angels and its snakes, it raised its walls of fireagainst me. He died, and it guarded her in near-death--againsteverything, including those who would help. My coming to the mountainhad activated it. My passing of the defenses had caused her to besummoned back to life.