As he recovered his balance Chenault was on him, fists pounding, swinging like sledges to smash his ribs and lacerate his lungs with their broken ends. To fill his throat with blood and his eyes with blazing, darting flashes.

Dazed, Dumarest hit the edge of the opening, moved through it and, doubled, spitting blood, lurched toward the glowing light.

Chenault followed, the connecting cable unreeling from its spool with a thin humming sound. One which stopped as the surrogate came to the end of its lead, its momentum tearing the connection from its body.

It crashed to the ground, jerking, twitching as if the metal and plastic held a life of its own. Charged relays mimicking direct, human action. Responding to the power that was flooding into it from the column so that it looked like a helpless cripple striving to gain a safe refuge.

When, finally, it stilled Dumarest moved slowly back to where the casket rested. He felt weak, giddy and every move filled his chest with the pain of tearing knives. He was dying, drowning in his own blood, every breath accentuating the internal damage.

As he passed Mirza she groaned, lifting up a hand, her voice fogged with pain.

"Earl! Earl, help me!"

A plea he ignored, dropping to his knees beside the cabinet, fingers searching for the catch he had seen Toyanna use. A panel lifted to reveal a selection of drugs; measured doses in sting-ampoules. He selected two and drove the needles into his throat. The pain-killer acted almost instantly and he hoped the hormone-based cellular sealing compound was as effective. Emergency treatment but it enabled him to see clearly, to think free of pain, to select more drugs and to cross to where Mirza nursed her pain and fear.

"Here." He sent the sting deep into the artery of her throat. "That'll take care of the pain."

"I'm half blind. My eye-"

"Is ruined." He injected another dose of drugs around the empty socket. "He knocked out the ball, pulped your nose and must have broken your cheek. The temple too, I think." He probed gently with his fingers. "Yes, I was right. Still hurt?"

"No, it's just numb." She sat upright and leaned against his supporting arm. "The others?"

"Dead."

"Chenault?"

"Hanging on." Dumarest glanced at the casket with its warning lights. "I misjudged him. I thought he'd yield when I threatened to leave him. Instead he went crazy."

"He was obsessed. He should have trusted you but-" She broke off, listening. "Earl?"

He had heard it too, a thin, high singing sound, accompanied by the ghost of bells. A sound they had heard before.

"It's coming back!" Mirza strained against his arm and climbed to her feet. "Earl! That shining thing! It's coming back!"

* * *

It came with the beauty of a drifting cloud, of light and brightness and of sad, sweet songs. Seeming to pause as it entered the space where the casket rested then to glow even brighter as it moved slowly forward. Watching it Dumarest felt his muscles grow tense even as his eyes drank in the alien beauty. It would be good just to sit and watch and let himself be absorbed by the glittering shape. To rest and cease from struggle and surrender to the inevitable. Death was a termination for him as for all things and where was the point in struggling when the final passing could be so enjoyable? To die. To sleep. To let himself be enfolded in the majestic pattern of nature. To become a part of the shining thing as the food he ate became a part of his own body and mind.

Then the shape he held against him slipped a little and he stared at a dead, tormented face.

Toyanna, her body smashed to pulp, blood marring her clothing, her face, her hair. A doctor who had tried to protect her patient and who had died in the attempt. Had she loved Chenault? If so she could still save him and others with him.

Dumarest rose, the body of the woman held upright in his arms, her head lolling against his chest. A weight he carried from behind the casket to where the shining thing waited as if aware that nothing living could resist its glowing beauty. To hold it out before him, to press it against the gleaming radiance, to feel it held as if by a multitude of tiny, invisible hands, then to release his hold and step back and sag against the wall where Mirza waited tense with expectant dread.

"God!" She closed her eye as if to shut out what she had seen. The feeding which stripped a victim layer by layer. One she had seen when Lopakhin had died and had now seen again. "Earl, will it come back?"

He listened to the dying cadences of its passage. As before, when it had fed, it had moved on. Satisfied with a willing victim, perhaps, following some age-old pattern established on some alien world. Speculations he set aside as, rising, he dragged the woman to her feet.

"I need your help. We've got to get Chenault out of the casket."

Touching her face, she said, bitterly, "Let the bastard rot!"

"Do as I say!" He was sharp; lifting the dead woman had filled his chest with the pain of new injuries. "I can't carry him, you'll have to do that. Hurry, now!"

He coughed and spat a stream of blood, feeling his lungs fill with more of his life's fluid as he tore open the casket. Mirza reached within, lifted the frail shape, brushed away the wired pads.

"You're a fool, Earl. If what you found can help you get to it. Forget Chenault. He deserves to die. In fact I think he's already dead. Leave him."

"I can't." Not while there remained the chance that the information he held could be gained. No matter how slender that chance might be. "Hand me those drugs."

They helped but not enough and Dumarest staggered as he led the way to the opening giving onto the column of light. It blazed brighter than he remembered, the soft susurration like voices calling from across vast distances, the tingle stronger now as if it were some form of atomic gas.

Mirza said, "That? Are we supposed to walk into that?"

"Have we any choice?" Again Dumarest vented a carmine stream. Fighting for breath he said, "It's a chance but what can we lose? We'd never get out in the condition we're in. Move, now. Carry Chenault into the column. I can't help."

"But you'll be able to manage?"

"Yes."

"To hell with Chenault. I'll drop him. Lean on me, Earl. We'll go in together."

"Just do as I say." And hurry, woman! Hurry before the old man is dead and it's too late! "Please, Mirza. Do it for me. Please!"

For a moment she stared at him and then she was gone, leaving him with the memory of her ruined face, the body of the old man held like a baby in her arms. Dumarest saw her step into the pool and walk without hesitation directly toward the central column. The mist-water-smoke-like blueness rose to her knees and, after she had reached halfway, he followed her as he had promised.

Slowly for he was heading into the unknown and every instinct warned him against it. The column could consume everything within it to atomic ash. Like the shining thing it could exist only to feed and yet it still was the only chance they had. One they couldn't afford to ignore.

Dumarest stepped into the pool.

Something like a tingling perfume rose around him and he inhaled, doubling to cough his pain as agony tore into his lungs. Sacrificing Toyanna's dead body had negated the healing medication and now even the pain killers had lost their power. He coughed again, staggering as the column spun in his sudden giddiness. One which dominated his actions, causing him to sag, to fall, to immerse himself in the pool as Mirza and her burden reached the column and vanished inside.

Too weak to move, Dumarest drifted like a dead fish in the lambent mist.

One which held magic.

The world was what a world should be with hard, clear seasons, a moon and stars a man could recognize and use to guide his way. A place where, at times, it was gentle and at others harsh. One where it was necessary to work and that was good, for to be idle was to grow weak. A planet which donated a heritage of pride.