“Ah, so!” he breathed.
“The luckless victims of the Basilisk.
There’s Kay, the poor lass—all bandaged.
Her child—and Bob Star!” His thin voice became a sort of wail.
“And there’s the keeper —ill. Unconscious, it looks.
And John Star lifting her to a higher place.
Ah, frightful death is hovering near them all.”
He caught a sobbing breath.
“Aye, and now I see those three scoundrels from the New Moon.
Hannas and Brelekko and John Comaine.
They are playing some dice game—all but Comaine.
And the little gambler, Abel Davian, is with them—still with his book and his mortal calculator.
Playing their blessed lives away, for pebbles, while wicked death creeps down upon them!”
His quivering fingers caught the girl’s arm.
“You must set them back on Earth,” he gasped. “And quickly— before they all perish!”
But she shook her head. “I can’t do it,” she said helplessly.
“That barrier field is almost as good as mine.
It takes all the power we have to drive a search field through it.
We can’t get through with a refractor field—not to pick up even one of them.”
Chan Derron was beside her, breathless.
“Then, Stella,” he demanded, “can you set me on the rock?”
“No,” she told him.
“That’s as impossible as lifting them away.
But why?”
His dark-stained eyes were narrowed and savage.
“I think the Basilisk is there on the rock—hiding inside that barrier field and watching his victims die,” he said grimly.
“I’m going after him.
If you can’t set me on the rock, drop me as near it as you can.”
“Into that dreadful sea.”
Her eyes were dark with concern.
“Chan, you’ll be killed!”
“Thanks, Stella.”
He grinned at her, very briefly.
“But I think the Basilisk is one of those people on the rock—and I have one clue to his identity.
I’m going to test it—if there’s time enough.
Won’t you help?“
“I’ll help.”
A brief light shone in her eyes and was extinguished with dread.
“Go to the other end of the room. Beyond the range of my barrier field. And—” her voice caught. “Goodbye, Chan!”
He was already striding away.
“Aye, farewell,” Giles Habibula called after him.
“My grandson!”
At the other end of the long, dusky control room, Chan Derron paused and raised his hand.
The girl looked at him for a moment, and then turned very suddenly to the little box beside her.
A savage, penetrating vibration throbbed through all Chan’s body.
The girl and old Habibula and the strange room were all whipped away.
He was flung through frigid blackness, into a world of yellow-green mist.
Green-winged horror flapped and screamed beside him.
He fell through the haze, toward the dark flat sea where larger creatures plunged now and again above the oily surface.
The geopellor could have checked him, but still he dived, because he thought the Basilisk might be watching from the rock.