The Sinners of Erspia

Two days later Laedo's proposal to the guardians that they should abandon their long vigil clearly was not going to get anywhere. Further, it became apparent that since his own drive could not be repaired, the guardians expected him and Histrina to return to Erspia before too long.

That night, he fell asleep mulling things over. Later, he was awakened by a hand shaking his shoulder.

Histrina stood there. She swayed slightly. Her face had a glassy look. In her right hand was his gun.

“It's done,” she said.

He sat up. “What are you doing with my gun?” he demanded harshly. She must have taken it from the locker where their spacesuits were kept, he realized. She turned away, and beckoned.

Silently he followed her. She took him to the sleeping cubicle adjoining his. On the pallet, covered by a thin sheet, lay Lylos, one of the guardians who had been introduced to him as a technician.

Histrina pointed to his head. Laedo leaned closer.

Blood trickled from a neat hole bored just to the rear of Lylos’ temple. It was a close-focus shot from Laedo's handgun.

Laedo had seen violent death many times on Erspia. He tried not to be shocked, especially when he thought of the pitiless experiment on which the guardians were engaged. But despite himself he was shocked. More than that, he felt frightened at having Histrina by his side, still holding the gun.

Wordlessly she led him to the other cubicles, first the men's, then the women's. In each skull the same neat hole had been drilled. Histrina had brought the centuried life of the entire projector station staff to an end.

“Now we can leave,” she said calmly.

He stared at her. “How could you do it?” he said blankly. “Especially in here ... where Ormazd reigns.

Didn't you feel his influence?"

“He doesn't reign over me. ” Her face lost its look of trance. Her eyes flashed, became alive. “Ormazd can't touch me now. Something happened to me when we flew towards Ahriman. He got deep inside me."

Laedo said nothing. Perhaps it could happen, he thought. At such intensity the beam might work a permanent change in someone—if they were receptive to it.

He was becoming more impressed with Histrina's mental sharpness. It was remarkable enough that she had guessed the gun to be a weapon, when there were only lances, swords and bows and arrows on Erspia. But that she had learned to use it so quickly...

This question was answered when she took him into her own sleeping cubicle. The walls were sprayed and splashed with molten material where she had experimented with the gun's focusing ring.

“Here's where I practised,” she told him. “Simple, really, isn't it?"

He held out his hand. “Give it to me, Histrina."

She drew the gun back, holding it behind her. “Oh, no, I want to keep it. Give it to me as a present."

Laedo sighed. Histrina had become clever and evil. He was going to have to learn not to turn his back to her.

The first job was to get rid of the bodies. This they did together by the simple expedient of throwing them out of the hatch towards Erspia. They would, with fair probability, end up falling through the shallow atmosphere to land as flaming meteors.

Laedo realized that he had acquired a valuable property in the station. Thought projection was a technique with limitless possibilities, once it was understood. There were people who would pay him a vast sum for the projector. He set himself to studying the station's controls. They were, he found, surprisingly simple to operate. Klystar had modelled them on the human technology then currently available—for the benefit of the human crew, no doubt—which wasn't so very different from today's.

Laedo didn't bother himself over where Klystar had obtained the human beings to people his exercise in practical psychology, but the drive unit, too, appeared similar to that he was used to.

Not wanting to lose his own ship, he employed a trick familiar to spacemen, manoeuvring it round the globe to reposition it precisely on the axis of thrust, directly opposite the drive unit. In any other position it would have been torn away once the globe was in motion, for the drive unit's energy field would only partially engulf it. If he had aligned it correctly it would now stay put, carried along by the globe's velocity.

Within hours he was ready to take off. Histrina still had the gun, but she seemed well disposed towards him and he didn't feel too uneasy—and anyway she needed him, he told himself. He abandoned thoughts of luring her back down to Erspia and leaving her there. She was too sharp for that. But he would try to buy some psychological rehabilitation for her in Harkio, he decided.

One thing he left till last. He had found himself reluctant to switch off the projector, knowing the field would be left to purely Ahrimanic influences. But what else could he do?