Chapter VIII

As she spoke, a burst of flame spatted sand in front of their sled. The shower of exploding particles blasted against the cowling.

Firebird turned off the light and spun the sled in towards the buildings. She sped into the shadows along what had once been the short main street of Pheme. Then they darted into a shadow between two buildings.

"There may be more than one of them," said Nathan.

The girl shook her head. "Searchers for the Seven Jewels do not work in pairs. Not for long, anyway. One of them soon kills the other when they do," she added enigmatically.

Nathan glanced at her sharply, wondering if she were reminding him of their own precarious agreement--or accusing Tabor.

They emerged cautiously from the sled, each gripping one of their flame rifles in addition to the smaller lances.

"That shot came from the flat-roofed building at the end of the street," said Nathan.

"We'll get on the roof of this one," said Firebird. "It's a hotel. It's the highest in town. We can fire the other building and get anyone trying to escape."

No other shots came their way. Nathan feared their assailant was leaving the building on the corner and trailing them up the street.

They entered the old hotel. A foot of sand covered the first floor. The stairs were slippery with it. Shattered windows let the cold night breeze flow through. On the second and third floors they disturbed coveys of sand bats who fluttered and squeaked and poured out the windows in a black cloud.

The enemy would certainly know their location now.

They came out onto the roof through a broken penthouse door, and in the faint moonlight they had a clear view of the decaying skeleton of the town.

The rifles they carried would shoot flames that spread over a great area and tended to hover like flaming coronae rather than piercing. Thus, they would be effective in firing the buildings.

They took up positions on opposite sides of the roof and sent a dozen shots into the base of the enemy hideout. But they had miscalculated as Nathan had feared. A fusillade of shots came from a roof directly across the street from them and their building burst into torrents of flame.

They transferred their fire to the building from which the shots came. The flames hovered and glowed like demons around the base of the structure, but they died like wraiths.

"I remember now," said Firebird. "That's the one fireproof building in Pheme. It was a special instrument laboratory. We'll have to smoke him out."

The tiny orange puffs of a flame lance came steadily from varying points of the other building as if the enemy were running about, pausing only long enough to shoot.

The flames from the burning building had already touched off the adjacent structures. The entire ghost town would be ablaze in a short time. Burning brands lit on the roof beside Nathan. They died, but others were coming in a rain of fire.

They could see the enemy by the light of the fire now. They fired the buildings on either side and forced him to keep low. But his shots were close and accurate. Nathan and Firebird shifted positions after each shot, but the parapet in front of them was sieved accurately.

Then Nathan suddenly realized that the building behind them was aflame and its light silhouetted them against the holes in the parapet. No wonder the enemy could find them.

He shouted to Firebird, "Get down!"

She was too good a flame lancer to be disturbed by his shouting. She remained calmly in position, taking a bead on the opposite window, waiting for the appearance of the top of the enemy's head.

He came up for a quick sight upon the perfect target of the holes which Firebird blacked out. They fired simultaneously.

Firebird's shot hit the edge of the window, spraying flame over the wall and curling it into the window. Some of it must have washed over the enemy, but too much of its energy had been dissipated to be effective.

* * * * *

But Firebird was hit. Her body slumped down over the rifle and lay flat on the roof. Crawling on his belly, Nathan wriggled over to her and raised her head. She was unconscious, but no horrible blackening of her flesh showed the touch of flame lance fire. Then he saw where it had struck. Her silver helmet.

It was too hot to touch. He knocked it away with his fist. Beneath it, her raven hair was singed but slightly. The electric shock had done most of the damage. He bent over her tenderly and fanned her face with the edge of her scarlet cloak. She began to stir. She opened her eyes and looked up at him. In that instant he knew that their lives were inseparably welded. No word was spoken, but he felt her trembling as if she suddenly knew it, too, and was afraid of it.

After a moment she looked about and spoke, her voice unsteady. "We'll have to get down. The hotel is on fire."

Nathan followed the direction of her glance. The open door of the penthouse sent smoke billowing outward.

"We'll never get down through the interior," said Nathan. He glanced at the adjacent building. It was one story lower and ten feet away.

Firebird saw his glance and shook her head. "We can't get over that way. He'd shoot us the instant we tried it. We'll have to go inside."

"But it's impossible."

Firebird smiled. "After you've been to the pool of Luline, many things are possible. Here--"

She unclasped the cloak from her throat and threw it about Nathan. "Protect your head and wrap it around you as much as possible. It won't burn."

Before he could protest, she wriggled away over the surface of the roof, keeping low out of the fire of their assailant. She plunged through the penthouse door into the inferno.

The smoke and flame billowed about her, licking at her slender, unprotected body. Nathan tried to catch her, but the blinding vapors made him stumble and fall clumsily. He wanted to throw the cloak about her again, but he was forced to gather it about him in order to make any headway at all.

Miraculously, Firebird seemed unharmed by the flames. On the second floor Nathan made out her figure hurrying far ahead of him. Her clothing was smouldering but her bare arms and legs seemed to glow with that same inner light that he had seen back in the cave on Venus.

He stumbled in the treacherous sand and lost sight of her again. He slid and fell down the first floor stairway, which was almost burned away. His weight on it sent ominous vibrations through it, and he tried to tread lightly.

Firebird was nowhere to be seen when he reached the street level. He raced outside in time to see the sand sled start up and disappear around the corner of the building. A puff of flame smashed against the sand in front of him. The enemy was watching for them to leave.

That was why Firebird had moved the sled. He went back into the burning building and fought his way to a back window out of the enemy's line of fire. He found Firebird waiting for him there. The smell of smoke was in her hair, but she seemed unharmed by the flames.

She gave him no time for questions. "I'm going to drive around the town. Fire every building with the rifle. That will drive him out eventually."

She twisted the sled out through the narrow street to the open desert and began circling. Nathan pressed the rifle through the open port and fired continually at the wooden buildings.

They watched sharply for their assailant, but he was apparently not aware of their escape. As they finished the circle, Firebird turned the sled out into the desert and swung up the far side of a high dune.

"We'll watch for him to make a break for his sled," she said. "When he does, we'll let him get started and follow closely. He won't be able to fire while driving, and he won't dare stop because we'll be on him."

Nathan nodded. As Firebird stopped the sled, he handed her the cloak, a mere handful of cloth. "I'd like to know what the secret of this cloak is--and how you made it through that fire without protection."

Firebird smiled. "So would a lot of other people." Then she sobered and added, "I think perhaps you will be the one to know--some day."

She turned away and watched the burning ghost village. It was a beautiful hell of flame. Every building was yellow with fire. The desert was lit for miles around, and the sound of the crackling was like the sound of some great battle.

"He can't stay in there much longer," said Firebird. The heat was already strongly felt at the dune.

"There he is!" Nathan exclaimed.

* * * * *

A figure burst suddenly out of the inferno and ran towards the far side of the burning town.

"We're on the wrong side," said Firebird. "Keep your eye on him and we'll move over if we can do it without being seen."

Cautiously, through the blow holes and behind dunes, they made their way forward. The sound of their engines and propellers was muffled in the roar of the fire.

They topped a rise and Nathan exclaimed, "There's his sled. He's moving."

"He must think we're dead," said Firebird. "He probably plans to come back and search the ruins for the Jewels when it's cooled off."

She added speed to overtake the other sled. It was in sight only part of the time and it would be easy to lose in the dunes and blow holes.

Nathan lowered the port a trifle and stuck the nose of the rifle through. He got a bead on the forward sled. And the instant he pressed the trigger, their own sled dipped down so that his shot went low.

But it served to warn their quarry of their presence. He must have whirled to get a look at them, for the sled wobbled crazily for an instant.

He dipped out of sight behind a dune and was gone when they reached the spot. Dunes blocked sight in all directions and a dozen paths branched out between them.

"Over there!" Nathan pointed to a fine sand cloud that betrayed the presence of the sled beyond the dunes.

Firebird followed and soon they came in sight again. Nathan fired another shot that went wide because of the plunging motion of the sled. Then the enemy suddenly plunged into the depths of an immense blow hole.

Firebird swung wide of the hole. Nathan glanced at her in puzzlement. "Where are you going?"

"Not down there. It would be fatal to get into a dog fight around the sides of that blow hole. We'll wait for him to come out and hope it is somewhere near us."

From the top of a small dune they caught sight of the other sled speeding around the inside of the hole. But he knew he had failed to lure them into it where he would have had as good chance as they. He sped up and over the edge opposite them.

Firebird started the sled moving again. Nathan kept his eye on the enemy. Even as he watched the other paused. "He's not running away. He's going to turn and fight!"

Firebird held her speed down and let the other build up. He came in shooting. Puffs of flame spurted from the small lance he was firing through the port.

Nathan raised the rifle and fired. The shot struck midway between the motor and the cabin and the enemy sled burst into flames.

"Good hit!" exclaimed Firebird. Then her face tensed. "He's going to ram us. Get his steering runner."

The blazing sled was hurtling towards them at terrific speed now. It was impossible to turn aside so that the enemy could not follow easily. Firebird tried it and the other sled changed to a new collision course.

Nathan fired again. Then a shot pierced their own housing as Firebird tried to weave out of the collision course. It made shooting difficult for Nathan but he put another shot into the motor of the enemy.

The blazing comet of the enemy sled was less than three hundred feet away now. Firebird could have turned tail to avoid collision, but that was apparently what the enemy wanted. His own position was increasingly desperate with the flames licking about the cabin and threatening the fuel tank.

Firebird kept weaving and brought out her own lance. She tried to hit the pilot, but her shots went wild.

"Stop weaving," said Nathan. "I've got to get a bead on that runner or we'll have to turn tail."

"It'll be your last shot," said Firebird, but she complied. Her slim hands held the sled steadily on a course towards the flaming wreckage that bore down upon them like a meteor.

Nathan raised in his seat and aimed carefully. He pressed the trigger. It was a hit. The steering runner of the enemy collapsed. The blazing sled reared end over end into the air hurtling towards them with the force of its momentum.

Firebird gave the wheel a mighty jerk and swerved aside as the wreckage plummeted into the space they had just vacated.

For moments they simply drove forward without saying anything as they lost speed.

"That was too close," Nathan said. "I waited too long for that shot."

"You got him. That's what counts."

He looked at Firebird. She was not disturbed by their narrow escape. It was obviously not in her philosophy to hold post mortems.

They swung back to the blazing wreckage. The light of dawn streaked the sky before it was cool enough to approach. There was no tangible remains of the enemy who had died in the flames.

"It couldn't have been Tabor. He shoots better than that," said Nathan.

Firebird poked among the embers, using the pouch containing the four Jewels as an indicator. Then she caught the sparkle in the sands.

It was the Blue Jewel.