Chapter VII

Tabor pushed his way into the crowd and the men backed away to return to their tables. The mob urge was broken.

"Put up your guns, Nathan. Can't you see that old Tom here is just having a little fun? Why, he wouldn't hurt a fly."

Nathan smiled thinly. "I hope the gentleman on the floor wasn't having a little fun, too. I'm afraid he won't be able to have it now."

Tompkins said sourly, "I thought you said Firebird and this young fool had been killed on the way here."

Tabor shrugged his shoulders. "That's the way news is here in these parts of the System. Nothing reliable. Everybody's liars."

He turned to Nathan. "There was some report about you and Firebird having gotten into trouble and I guess the story got exaggerated. I'm plenty glad to see you safe. I came in the _Sunbeam_ to take you back to Venus."

"How did you know I was here?"

"The _Corsair_ was seen leaving. I knew you'd be aboard."

"Why?"

Tabor shrugged. "I saw how Firebird twisted your father around her little finger until he got wise. I knew you'd never be able to kill her or resist her. She's a witch. Stay aboard the _Sunbeam_ tonight and we'll start back for Venus in the morning."

"I'm not going back. I'm staying aboard the _Corsair_."

Tabor's face darkened. "Your father warned you, son. She's poison. Already you are convinced that she didn't kill him, but it'll always be my personal opinion that she is the one who shot Thymar."

"I believe so, too, but she has offered to help me find out who did. I'm seeing it through to find out what she knows."

"She's a liar and a thief. She'll get the two Jewels your father left you and do the same to you as she did to him."

Nathan knew that seemed the obvious conclusion, but it wasn't reasonable in the face of things he had seen. There was something more that was far from obvious. There was the mystery of Firebird herself and the magic pool of Luline. And the mystery of the Jewels themselves.

"I'll find out my own way," said Nathan.

Tabor's face broke with a deep laugh then. "I might have known what your answer would be. In a lifetime of argument with Thymar I never won yet. I see I'm going to do the same with you. Let's drink. You and Firebird come aboard the _Sunbeam_ for tonight. I'll leave for Venus in the morning and wait for you to come back--which won't be long, I'm predicting."

Nathan went over to the table where Firebird still seemed to ignore her surroundings. But there was admiration in her eyes.

"That was nice handling," she said. "I knew you could do it."

"It could have been done without shooting," said Nathan.

"You don't know the 'Orbit'," Firebird replied with a smile. "No man sets foot in here for the first time without being tried by gunfire. I gave you the best possible opening. You took it like a veteran of the spaceways. They'll respect you, now."

"Tabor wants us to come aboard the _Sunbeam_ for tonight. He's leaving for Venus in the morning and wants me to go back, but I told him that I wouldn't."

"Rather curious--that rumor about our being killed on the way here," said Firebird.

"Possibly the Black Warrior was in communication with someone just before the battle and gave word that he was closing in on us."

"Possibly--" Firebird's eyes were gazing across the room towards Tabor. "I'll go aboard the _Sunbeam_ on one condition," she said.

"What's that?"

"Let me have your two Jewels in my possession while we are aboard. I'll return them in the morning."

Nathan looked at her, trying to fathom her motives, wondering why he trusted her, why he wanted to trust her--

"Why?"

"The Jewels are syncro-responsive," said Firebird. "When several of them are together they indicate the near presence of another one by becoming warm. The more there are together, the warmer they become. When the nearby Jewel is very close the effect disappears."

"I don't see--"

"Tabor has one of the Jewels, I'm sure. The Pink one."

"But that's the one that was stolen! That would mean--"

"Exactly. How do you suppose he obtained the mistaken idea that we were dead? I'll tell you how it was: He tipped off the Black Warrior who attacked us in space. Tabor didn't dare do it himself, but he left it for the other killer to do, then Tabor planned to take our four Jewels from our attacker. That's why he came here--to look for the man."

"He came to take me back."

"Nonsense. That's a tale he thought up on the spur of the moment when he found that we were victorious in the space battle."

Nathan frowned. The story was logical even if it wasn't reasonable. But Firebird had no proof. Unless she could prove Tabor had the Pink Jewel--

Carefully concealing his emotions from the crowd in the tavern, Nathan unlocked the belt container of the Jewels and handed them over to Firebird.

"Tabor's waiting," he said.

For Tabor, Firebird donned another cloak of personality, revealing still another facet of herself to bewilder Nathan. She taunted and baited Tabor as if trying to rouse his anger.

But the shaggy spaceman seemed to be in a mood that would not be ruffled by Firebird's taunts. Aboard the ship, they entered the tiny lounge cabin.

"I've got frozen Grier steak direct from Venus," Tabor said. "How does that sound?"

"O.K." said Nathan.

"Then I'll show you how a master cook of the spaceways prepares it."

He disappeared into the galley. Nathan watched Firebird. Her eyes darted about the walls of the cabin as if searching every panel and joint. She edged closer to Nathan on the narrow lounge seat. When Tabor was out of sight around the corner of the corridor, she took Nathan's hand and pressed it against the pouch where she had the four Jewels.

The pouch was almost too hot to touch.

* * * * *

Questions piled upon his lips. Firebird smiled without speaking. "But we don't know the color of it," said Nathan.

"Right. We don't know the color of it, except that it's either blue or pink."

"We'll find out soon enough," said Nathan. He rose from the seat, his lips pressed tightly.

"No!" Firebird grasped his arm. "We don't need to do that. We'll let him bring it to us when we need it. There's no danger of his going to Venus, now."

"What do you mean?" Nathan sat down reluctantly.

"We'll head for the Pater Mountains where the seventh Jewel is buried. You did a good job of letting it be known what we were here for. When we start buying equipment the word will get around that we are going for the seventh Jewel. You can be sure that Tabor will be there--and so will the holder of the remaining Jewel. We'll have the seven then. They'll be ours for the taking."

Nathan nodded. "Perhaps you are right. It would be easier to force Tabor to tip his hand out there than here in Taurus."

The next morning they said goodbye to Tabor and watched the _Sunbeam_ lift into the Martian sky. For a moment Nathan wondered if they were right. If Tabor should actually be heading for Venus--

Since the _Corsair_ was being repaired they had a logical reason for preparing to go to the Pater Mountains by sand sled, besides the secret purpose of making it easy to trail them.

They made elaborate preparations. They visited every supply store in the Five Cities, pricing and examining sand sleds and boldly discussing their reason for wanting one.

By the time their equipment was assembled every spaceman in Taurus knew of their purpose and destination. And the word passed to the other towns on Mars as well.

It was a late afternoon two days later when they left Taurus. Firebird proposed a late start in order to make it easy for anyone to follow them. Since their destination was well known they anticipated ambush from ahead as well as trailing from behind.

Nathan climbed into the narrow seat of the sand sled beside Firebird. She took the wheel because she was familiar with the trail to the Mountains. When the transparent cowling was closed over them they seemed to be in a tiny, separate world all their own. Behind, the muffled roar of the propeller cut the air and mounted in intensity as the sled began to move forward and the runners hissed against the sand.

Firebird handled the sled as if any vehicle that traveled slower than a space ship was much too slow for her. She soon had the sled up to top speed over the level area near Taurus and soon they were weaving among the giant dunes.

The great, shifting dunes of the Martian desert were forty to fifty feet high. Already the valleys between them were filled with purple shadows and the air was turning cold.

The sled dipped and careened; sometimes it plunged into deep sand valleys and whipped around the curved walls of deep blow holes until it was tipped almost at right angles, clinging only by centrifugal force.

Nathan had the impression that Firebird was enjoying it. The treachery of the desert was a challenge to her skillful, daredevil driving.

Soon the sun was down and the pale light of the twin moons was deceptive on the sands. Firebird slowed the plunging flight of the sled and drove cautiously then until near midnight.

"We should be somewhere near the town of Pheme, such as it is," she said. "The last time I saw it, it was almost a ghost town. It may have been completely abandoned by now."

"I've never heard of it," said Nathan.

In a moment Firebird exclaimed, "There it is! How's that for navigation over this desert? Right on the nose."

Nathan laughed at Firebird's exuberance over her accuracy. He knew that it was no small job to follow such an unmarked trail across the sands that shifted constantly and made landmarks impossible.

When he first saw the town it looked like only another group of dunes until he saw some of the silhouettes had angular corners. Too angular. Some of the walls he could see sloped crazily.

As they came near to the town it appeared more evident that it was merely abandoned wreckage. There were no lights at all to betray signs of occupation.

Slowly, Firebird brought the sled up to the edge of the group of buildings. The floor of the town, which had been laid over the sands to prevent the buildings from being buried or undermined by the winds was itself covered now with shifting sands and the walls of some of the structures leaned drunkenly under the heavy burden piled against them.

Instead of driving into the town, Firebird turned her lights onto the sand directly in front of the sled and began circling the ruin.

"Where are you going?" Nathan asked.

"I want to see if there are sled tracks leading into the ruins. Unless they've been waiting for a couple of days we should be able to forestall any ambush here."

They peered ahead as the spot of light moved slowly over the sand. But nowhere did they see the twin ruts marking the path of a sand sled.

Suddenly Firebird stopped. "No one would bring a sled up into the town if they wanted to ambush us. They'd know we would look for tracks. They would leave the sled at a distance and come in on sand shoes."

"And it's almost impossible to track those."

"It can be done," Firebird said slowly. "But I don't think we'll have to do it."

"Why not?"

She placed his hand against the Jewel pouch. It was warm with warning heat.

"Whoever is here has one of the Jewels, and he's not more than two hundred feet away," said Firebird.