We both waited. Nothing happened. The turtle shape began to groan, loud, windy, melodramatic sighs.

I began very cautiously to move, turning over at first onto

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my hands and knees, then moving my hands up onto the wall in front of me and slowly easing myself up the wall till I was on my feet. Then I tucked the pistol away in my pocket, undid the thong of the sheath around my neck, and carefully removed the knife that had saved me, slipping it up from inside my shirt. Moving it that way made quick stinging pains in my back, but I ignored them and looked instead in the dim red light at the knife.

It was a crumpled mess. The side of the sheath that had been against my back was cut and full of blood, and the other side had been almost completely sheared away by the bullet. The crater of the bullet's impact was there in the knife, plus a long groove where it had deflected and scratched its way up as far as the hilt. The lip of the hilt was bent back where the scratch met it, but from that point bullet and knife had parted company.

I tossed the knife away and looked around, for the first time paying real attention to the room itself. It was sparsely furnished with a cot against one wall, a few ramshackle chairs, a battered trunk, a home-made table. Floor and walls were dirt. There were no decorations of any kind. Oh, brave new world!

There was a thin blanket on the cot. I took it and ripped off several strips, six inches wide, and wrapped two of the strips tightly around my chest, relieving the feeling of pressure and giving some support to my ribs. I thought I could dare to move more freely now.

Lastus lay on his side near the steps, not far from where the groaner lay on his back and made his noises. I went over and checked Lastus and he was dead, as I'd known he must be, his eyes wide open and full of surprise. I searched him, and then searched the room, and found nothing of interest.

The dead youth was dressed in rags so filthy I hardly searched his body at all. I hadn't expected to find anything noteworthy on him and I didn't.

I went over and squatted down beside the groaner and slapped his face, saying, "Shut up and listen to me."

He blinked several times, very rapidly, and stared at me in astonishment. I believe he'd forgotten about me. When he remembered, he shouted, "You killed my boy!" He waved his arms as though he wanted to get at me.

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I took out the can of blinding gas and showed it to him and said, "Do you see what this isP'

He just kept waving his arms and glaring at me.

I slapped him again, to attract his attention. "I asked you, do you see what this is I'm holding in my hand?"

"I see it, you rotten thing. I know what it is."

"It will be the last thing you see," I told him, "if you don't tell me what I want to know."

"Rotter."

"It's a bad life in a place like this for a blind man," I said.

He understood me now. He blinked up at me; I saw him get frightened, and I knew when he was ready to listen to me.

I said, "You people didn't do the shooting, you don't have guns. You came down afterwards, to pick the bodies."

"Why not?" he cried. "Somebody would."

"It's a fine system you've got," I said. "You saw who did do the shooting, though."

He shook his head emphatically. "It was all over when we got there!"

I tapped his nose gently with the can. "Be careful," I said. "Don't tell foolish lies."

"It was all over!"

"No," I said.

"Why not? Why not?"

"One, you wouldn't have known there were bodies down here to be picked if you hadn't seen them drop. Two, if you'd come along later you would have been too late because some other scavengers would have beaten you to it." I tapped him with the can again. "You're not very good at lying," I said. "Better not try it any more, you'll just make me impatient."

"I didn't know them," he said.

"Which means you did know them. Who were they?"

"I swear—"

I hit him a little harder. "Don't waste my time."

"I'll tell you what I know!" he shouted. "There were two of them. They came out and shot you."

"Came out? Came out of where?"

"A place across the street, a house over there.**

"Is that where they live?"

"No. Nobody's lived there for a long while."

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"They're both men?"

"Oh, yes."

"They were already here, eh? Waiting for me. What did they do afterwards, go back into the house?"

"No. They took your car and drove away."

"Did they come down here?"

"No."

"What are their names?"

"I don't know," he said stubbornly.

I started to hit him, then changed my mind. I said, reasonably, "What are they to you? Why protect them? Why get blinded instead of giving me a chance to get near them again? Maybe they'll kill me after all."

"They will," he said. "If you go after them they'll finish the job on you. I'll do them a favor, telling you."

"That's the way to think."

"Malik and Rose," he said.

I repeated the names, and said, "That's all the names they have?"

"That's all I know."

"Rose is a man?"

"Of course." He seemed surprised at the question.

"What do they look like?"

"Big, like you. Young, like Alfie, or like you. They shave their heads to keep the bugs away."

"Where do I find them?"

"I don't know. If I knew I'd tell you, because then you'd go there and they'd kill you, like you killed my boy."

He was telling the truth. I got to my feet and put the can away and said, "Goodbye."

He cursed.

I went to the steps, my pistol again in my hand, and went up them cautiously, pausing midway to let my eyes re-accustom themselves to the glare of daylight. I was stopped with my body still completely within the lean-to, my head at about street level. Looking out, the narrow strip of outside world I could see looked unnaturally empty and motionless, like the remains of lost colonies on the fic-films. Across the way was the corrugated metal shack which must be the "house" my assassins had been waiting in.

The stillness and emptiness continued unbroken as I stood

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watching. The only sound was the heavy breathing of the wounded man down behind me. Of Alfie, to whom the wounded man had kept calling for help, there was no sign.

Yet I remained cautious. I crept out of that hole like a gopher in a desert of carnivores, moving one slow careful step at a time.

No one. I stood at last in the entranceway, one step down from ground level, peering this way and that, and still I saw no sign of life. The sound of shooting must have driven the locals into their own holes; here, curiosity was anti-survival.

I purposely made a noise, clinking the pistol against the spray can in my pocket, but nothing happened. I lifted one foot, slid it out onto the ground, waited. Nothing. I shifted my weight forward. I raised the other foot, brought it up beside the first.

The sun went out.

Confusion. Darkness. Stench. Coarse cloth scraping my face and neck. Soft heavy weights dropping on my shoulders and back, bending me, driving me to the ground.

I roared in rage and fright, but the noise was muffled even in my own ears. My arms were imprisioned, held against my sides. The pistol in my hand was useless and worse than useless. If it went off, I would be shooting myself in the leg.