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She waited there on her uncertain perch just below the top of the wall,
letting her ears tell her when it might be safe to look by the sound of the
ox. The man stuck with the animal. There was very little else he could do,
since there was barely enough room for the animal to walk around, and if be
stood still the beast would only run him over in a couple of minutes. Besides,
the smoke was terrible and the flame damned hot -but if he stayed behind the
ox, he had the mirror between him and the flame, which helped a little.
Finally, the man walked inside to pump his pumps and move his levers to let
more fuel into the lamp reservoir. It was hot and uncomfortable, and he did it
quickly. Jill didn't move the first time, since she wanted to see just what
his routine was. What he did was come out and take the shortest path to the
rear of the ox. That was handy.
Just as a watched pot never seems to boil, a watched lamp reservoir never
seems to go down.
Soon Jill's feet and leg muscles started to ache like mad, and imagina-tion-at
least she hoped it was just her imagination-started making the piton feel
loose and uneven, as if it were about to drop off.
She maintained her self-control, though, and when the man finally went back in
to prime the lamp reservoir again, she moved up and out in front of the ox,
which gave her a slight glimpse but didn't stop its monotonous walk. She crept
silently ahead until she was sure she was far enough around so that the man
wouldn't be able to see her ahead or, she hoped, just across. The
lamp was terribly hot; she began perspiring immediately.
As soon as the man walked out to make his way back to his shield behind the
ox, she rolled into the light structure and belly-crawled quickly to the small
stone stairway opening.
This is going to be tight and rough, she thought, but there was nothing else
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she could do. Momentarily she would be within two meters of the flame.
Using the mirror as a shield, she got up quickly and made for the stairs at
just the right point.
, The heat was intense, unbearable; she was certain that she couldn't
withstand it for more than a few seconds. But she made it down into the hole
perfectly, then paused to catch her breath and let her body temperature cool
down. She was drenched with perspiration and felt as if she had a high fever.
She hoped she wasn't on fire.
It was dark below except for a shaft of light coming from the opening above.
She could see the base of the turntable near her and hear its creaky turning,
even rear the sounds of man and animal on their long walk to nowhere just
above-but there were no alarms.
No human being could stand duty like the lighthouse keeper for very long. Jill
felt confident that the guard was changed frequently, perhaps as
frequently as every one to two hours. It didn't matter. She intended
to wait for the guard change here, on the steps. It was a free ticket down.
It was not, mercifully, a very long wait. She heard him first-a
noise, someone moving far below-then heard the clanging of some chains and
the lifting of some gates. She was exhausted, but this was only the beginning,
and she forced herself into action.
Finally there was a torch visible below, and when it was clearly in someone's
hand she moved swiftly and silently over, judged the distance to the bottom
part of the turntable, then leaped for it and held on with both hands. It was
hot, but bearably hot. She had conceived this notion when she'd seen that this
bottom part was made of thick hardwood. Had it been metal, it would certainly
have been too hot to hold on to and would have forced a new plan.
She turned slowly with the light and waited nerv-ously for the man with the
torch to pass. For the briefest of moments the top of the tower would be
lighted by that torch and she would be exposed. She hoped that the man was
neither expecting the extraordi-nary nor looking for it.
He wasn't. He was tall and thin, a gaunt man dressed as the other had been.
His expression told her how much he hated going to work now. She had a bad
moment when he stopped just below the opening to the top to wait for the
shielded side to come around, but he was looking up there, to the light, and
not at her.
Finally he passed, and she was behind him, hanging in the darkness. Her arms
ached and the heat trans-ferred from the top started to get to her, but she
held on.
A man with lighthouse duty doesn't stick around and talk much to his
replacement when he's relieved, so it was only a minute or two before the
original guard came down the steps, torch in hand. He was far too smoked up
and heated up to be looking for visitors, and passed right by her.
She let him get just ahead and below and swung herself back to the stairs,
thank-ful for the slight glow from his torch and the light above. As she had
hoped, the noise of the light itself masked her. The torch never wavered-and
now she followed it, getting as close to the relieved guard as she dared.
At the first level there was a gate and then a flat floor. Doors to several
small chambers were
revealed in the torchlight. She didn't like the iron gate at all, nor the fact
that the guard took a big key off his belt and moved to unlock it. The noise
seemed to disturb whoever or whatever was in the rooms. She could hear a
gibbering and hissing and a lot of banging sounds, like an inhuman army of
ghouls and other creatures clamoring for release. It scared the hell out of
her but didn't seem to ruffle the guard at all.
The key and gate were a different matter. There seemed only one key on his
belt, so it was safe to as-sume that, even if there were more locks and gates,
this key would fit. But she would need it-and that meant getting the guard.
She didn't really have the size or strength to knock the man cold with a
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piton, blackjack style.
That meant the dagger. She drew it, then hesitated as Mogart's voice seemed to
echo in the back of her mind from some distant space and time.
"Ever kill anyone, either of you? . . . Do you think you could do so? Could
you kill if, by doing so, you could stop that thing up there from hitting
the Earth, maybe even reverse a lot of what has happened here?"
Well, here it was. The man had the key in the lock, was turning it.
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