Trask shook his head. 'Son, we all have our talents. Anna Marie, Chung, myself and you. Especially you. Well, lan Goodly is talented, too, and I trust him as well as I trust myself. If he says I have no immediate future here, then obviously I can't stay here. And anyway, can't you see what a strange thing that was for him to say? No "immediate" future? Does that mean there is a future for Chung and me, but a distant one? And does that mean we're to make our way to Sunside/Starside, and then return at some later date?'
Nathan nodded. 'I was faced with the same problem once. My future was foreseen, and I was told it would come about even if I tried to avoid it. The future is like the past: immutable. It can't be avoided, therefore it's better not to know it.'
Anna Marie had locked the inner door and was crouched with her ear to it. They're doing something on the far side,' she said. 'Preparing more charges, maybe? But it will take longer. They have to be careful not to bring the whole place down.'
And one of the cavers asked nervously, 'So who's going?1
The three of us,' Trask answered at once, but he glanced at Anna Marie, waiting for her to say:
'Four,' as she straightened up. 'I witnessed that mayhem back there, that cold-blooded murder! Whoever was responsible, he won't want witnesses.'
Trask gave it only a moment's thought, then:
'Okay,' he said. 'I was going to ask you to come anyway.'
'Oh?'
'Yes. You see, the leader of that ratpack back there is Geoffrey Paxton. Apparently he's with CMI now.'
'Hold on a second,' another caver growled. 'I mean, we've been pretty patient here, but don't you think it's. time someone told us what the hell's going on? Nobody told us we were going to war! As for this bloke -' he stared at Nathan - 'the way he comes and goes ... shit, we're completely in the dark! All we know is that we're working for you, Mr Trask. But are you doing something wrong here, or what? Isn't CMI a government outfit?'
'Let's get underway,' Trask answered, 'and I'll tell you as we go.'
As the cavers made ready their equipment, so Anna Marie applied a field dressing to Nathan's shoulder. His wound was a deep groove along the firm, rounded muscle of his upper arm. Almost a burn as opposed to a cut, the bullet had self-cauterized its own damage. Criss-crossing an earlier burn he'd come by only two days earlier in the Greek Islands, the result was a stiffening of the shoulder. Mercifully, that was all.
And in a little while the party set out up the course of the underground river ...
Twenty-five minutes later, following the main watercourse deep into a subterranean cavern system, the seven were up to their thighs in ice-cold water and Trask had told a much-abbreviated story of an alien world and the vampire creatures who dwelled there. Where he might have erred, Nathan was there to correct him. Also, Trask had detailed the reasons why Nathan must get back there - not only to save his world, but possibly ours, too - and had even put forward his theory about Paxton: the ex-telepath's reason for wanting to take Nathan alive ... or dead, if only for revenge against Harry Keogh.