She dropped to the ground, Quiller a second behind her. "Damn stupidity," she
heard him say as debris showered down on them, "us standing here gawking at a
bomb. Let's move out."
Allison tried to stand, saw the red oozing from the side of her leg. The pilot
stooped and carried her through the damp brush, twenty or thirty meters upwind
from the crater. He set her down and bent to look at the wound. He pulled a
knife from his crash kit and sawed the tough suit fabric from around her wound.
"You're lucky. Whatever it was passed right through the side of your leg. I'd
call this a nick, except it goes so deep." He sprayed the area with first-aid
glue, and the pain subsided to a throbbing pressure that kept time with her
pulse.
The heavy red smoke was drifting steadily away from them. The orbiter itself was
hidden by the crater's edge. The explosions were continuing irregularly but
without great force. They should be safe here. He helped her out of her pressure
suit, then struggled out of his own.
Quiller walked several paces back toward the wreck. He bent and picked up a
strange, careen shape. "Looks like it got thrown here by the blast." It was a
Christian cross, its base still covered with dirt.
"We crashed in a damn cemetery," Allison tried to laugh, but it made her dizzy.
Quiller didn't reply. He studied the cross for some seconds. Finally he set it
down and came back to look at Allison's leg. "That stopped the bleeding. I don't
see any other punctures. How do you feel?"
Allison glanced down at the red on her gray flight fatigues. Pretty colors,
except when it's your own red. "Give me some time to sit here. I bet I'll be
able to walk to the rescue choppers when they come."
"Hmm. Okay, I'm going to take a look around... There may be a road nearby." He
unclipped the crash kit and set it beside her. "Be back in fifteen minutes."
FOUR
They started on Wili the next morning. It was the woman, Irma, who brought him
down, fed him breakfast in the tiny alcove off the main dining room. She was a
pleasant woman, but young enough to be strong and she spoke very good Spanish.
Wili did not trust her. But no one threatened him, and the food seemed endless;
he ate so much that his eternal gnawing hunger was almost satisfied. All this
time Irma talked ў but without saying a great deal, as though she knew he was
concentrating on his enormous breakfast. No other servants were visible. In
fact, Wili was beginning to think the mansion was untenanted, that these three
must be housekeeping staff holding the mansion for their absent lord. That jefe
was very powerful or very stupid, because even in the light of day, Wili could
see no evidence of defenses. If he could be gone before the jefe returned...
"ў and do you know why you are here, Wili?" Irma said as she collected the
plates from the mosaicked surface of the breakfast table.
Wili nodded, pretending shyness. Sure he knew. Everyone needed workers, and the
old and middle-aged often needed whole gangs to keep them living in style. But
he said, "To help you?"
"Not me, Wili. Paul. You will be his apprentice. He has looked a long time, and
he has chosen you."
That figured. The old gardener ў or whatever he was ў looked to be eighty if he
was a day. Right now Wili was being treated royally. But he suspected that was
simply because the old man and his two flunkies were making illegitimate use of
their master's house. No doubt there would be hell to pay when the jefe
