to kiss her and then stood watching as he stepped toward the vac-lock.

Abruptly he turned and stood, hands on his hips, laughing at her. It was a hollow, mirthless, mocking laughter.

"You fool," he roared. "You stupid little fool of a woman. Did you think you could kill ME—Yancey Ritter—with the same trick I used on Daniels? Giving me these punctured thermiteens!" He threw them with a crash at her feet and stepped threateningly toward her.

"Yancey," she cried, and his heavy fist caught her on the side of the head and sent her sprawling to the floor.

"You don't fool me," he said, looking at her. "I'm not a blind fool like Daniels. This is my round to win and I won't be stopped." He turned and strode into the lab for fresh thermiteens.

She was still sprawled in the same spot when he returned. "I'm not finished with you," he snarled. "We'll finish the payment when I get back from Athens."

And with that he disappeared into the vac-lock.

Resolutely, he strode through the flying dust, eyes set on the orange orb that was the sun. A slow steady gait, he had found, was the most practical way to cover distance in the shifting blood dust of the Desert Rouge.

As the morning advanced, the winds that drove the sand seemed to increase in their elemental fury. The sun was all but blotted out and the dust swirled and eddied in an orange and red kaleidescope. It was as if some giant stood and threw great fistfuls of choking sand at Yancey.

He touched the cool water in the thermiteen to his lips often and each time he drank he half-laughed aloud, remembering the disappointment on Selo's face when she saw her trick was discovered.

He skirted wide around the rocks where he had found Brian. No reason to spoil the day by a second glimpse of that grisly sight.

Once or twice it seemed to him that he was being followed but he dismissed the notion as nerves.

Perhaps, he thought, it's Daniels' ghost. And with a harsh laugh he toasted Daniels' ghost in the cool water. He toasted Selo and the commandant and the quolla merchant who would soon give him a fortune for the stones in the chamois bag.

The wind clawed at him with gritty fingers and his boots seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the yielding dust. Every 

 Prev. P 14/16 next