THE SEVEN JEWELS OF CHAMAR

The bearded giant, Thymar Ormondy, raised stiffly on one arm from the bed of litter on the damp cave floor. He pointed the charred stub of his other arm at his son.

"Beware the Firebird!" His voice was distorted with pain. "She'll kill a thousand men for every one of the Seven Jewels of Chamar."

Nathan Ormondy threw back his rain cape and knelt beside his dying father. The great hulk of the old man sank back upon the rags.

"Did she do this?" Nathan demanded fiercely. His eyes filled with flame at the sight of the terrible wound that had come from a shot in the back.

Thymar lay without answering. His eyes were closed. Nathan heard only the hushing sound of the eternal Venusian rains that blotted out the distant hills like a ragged curtain hung over the mouth of the cave.

Behind Nathan another shaggy spaceman touched his shoulder. It was Tabor, his father's companion. The two police custodians from Aquatown shifted uneasily.

"Was it Firebird?" Nathan demanded of the watchers.

Before they could answer, Thymar's remaining hand fell upon Nathan's wrist. "There is more to tell," the old spaceman whispered.

Nathan hunched lower to seize every word. "What is it?"

"The Jewels of Chamar—"

"Curse the Jewels of Chamar! They stink with blood. I'd blast them all if I could!"

Thymar's wide, steel eyes opened slowly. The leather of his face crinkled like finely tanned doeskin.

"When you have looked into the blue depths of a stone that is like the eye of all the universe you'll never be able to turn your back upon it. You'll never rest until you have found all seven of the Jewels—or death."

"Death is all that anyone has ever found."

"Ah," said Thymar, "but one man will find himself the master of all the universe when once he holds all seven of the Jewels in his hands. That is the promise of the Jewels—mastery, power. And I know that it is true. I've held them—as many as five of them at once, and I know what it means. There's a force in them that sweeps through the brain and the soul. It lifts a man to power and strength beyond himself."

"Pah! Autohypnosis—or plain drunkenness. There are a thousand other names for it."

"No," said Thymar softly. "It's there—pure life force, or whatever it might be termed, but with those Jewels one man would be as ten thousand men, each greater than any Earth has produced.

"And you can be that man, Nathan!" The old spaceman raised again from the bed. "I bequeath to you the two Jewels that I have left. There were three, but—"

"Firebird?"

"That does not matter. I warned you of her because she has sworn to have the Jewels. I know she has two, maybe more. You'll have to kill her for them. Think what it would mean to the universe if that ruthless witch possessed the Jewels. Hell would be let loose.

"The Jewels are no concern of mine. I want to know only who did this to you."

Thymar sank back again. His voice whispered almost inaudibly, "Come closer."

"In the cave of Lava Mountain," he whispered hoarsely, "do you remember the Stone Pig? The two Jewels are there. It makes no difference who did this to me. Nothing matters but the Jewels of Chamar. Take them—and become master of the universe!"

"Who did—?" Then Nathan's fury-laden voice ceased. The only sound was the hush of rain outside. Slowly Nathan's head bent low. His father was dead. Never again would Thymar Ormondy's voice roar upon the spaceways or in the thousand tavern rendezvous of the spacemen.

Tabor put his hand upon Nathan's shoulder. "Sorry, son."

Nathan rose. It was as if an electric charge had been thrust between the other men.

"I'll find the killer," said Nathan evenly. He looked down at the form on the cavern floor. "I'll find him if it takes the rest of my life. Why did he warn me of Firebird? Was it only because of the Jewels or do you think she could have done this?"

"He hated Firebird because of an old quarrel. She might have done it, but I don't know. I was with Thymar in Aquatown when he received a message saying information concerning the Blue Jewel could be found here. He went alone and we were to meet a day later to leave for Mars. He didn't show up so I came here and found him like this."

Nathan nodded. The policeman, Cleeg, had told him that much after Tabor had sent word. But that was no help. It only served to fix Nathan's hatred more intensely upon the cursed Seven Jewels of Chamar.

"Was my father carrying any of the Jewels when he came here?"

"He had the Pink one. I tried to warn him, but he said he could take care of it."

"And now it's gone, of course."

Tabor nodded. "The whole thing was a trap by someone who knew he had it."

"Who knew of it?"

"Half of Venus. He was drunk and boasting of it in the taverns the night before."

That was Thymar, Nathan thought, a great flagon of wine in one hand, boasting to the whole assemblage in some tavern, proclaiming his fabulous deeds upon the spaceways and challenging any one to dispute his word with flame lances.

"Take care of things, will you?" Nathan said abruptly. "I'll get back to the town."

"What are you going to do?"

"I think I know a way to trap the killer."

The policeman and Tabor looked startled. "Be careful, boy," said Tabor. "Do you want me to go with you?"

"No. Don't worry about me."

"Watch out for Firebird. She's on Venus now, and your father must have had a reason for his warning."

"Bah! She's nothing but a Calamity Jane legend. Have you ever traded flames with her?"

"I've seen men who have. They weren't alive to tell about it."

"Spacemen dislike combat with a woman so you've built up a myth about her to give an excuse for not killing her. But if she is the one who killed my father she's going to pay for it."

"Then why not let the police bring her in?"

"What police? Four planets have put a price on her head and she walks free in the cities of any of them."

"She's dangerous," Tabor repeated his warning. "And perhaps she is not the killer after all. There's no use crossing her trail needlessly."

"We'll soon know," Nathan promised.

He turned and strode out of the cavern of death while the two police officers began preparing his father's body for the trip back to the city under Tabor's direction. He paused a moment at the entrance and drew up the waterproof hood of his cloak and tied the knot beneath his chin, then went out into the sheeting rain.

At the bottom of the steep and slippery trail leading from the cave waited Perseus, the white stallion imported from Earth. In a world still battling incessantly against the jungle the horse was one of the chief means of private transportation, even though practically extinct on Earth.

Perseus nuzzled against Nathan's neck and the man rested his face against the horse's head for a moment. Loneliness and weariness descended upon Nathan. He was lonelier than he had ever known he could be, he thought. Thymar had never given much companionship to his son because their adventurous spirits had led them in opposite directions. But the mere knowledge of Thymar's existence somewhere in the universe was the only companionship Nathan had needed. Now that was gone.

And somewhere on Venus was a murderer he had to kill.

II

It was after dark when Nathan reached Aquatown. The streets of the Venusian frontier village literally flowed with water, proving the accuracy of its naming.

Lights on the corners and in front of the taverns were ghostly blobs in the rain. Few Earthmen were about, but the little polite Greenies of Venus swarmed the streets nodding and smiling when they saw Nathan. They knew and revered him as the great engineer from Earth who had brought lights and power to their wet, primitive world.

Aquatown was only a frontier village with more than its quota of taverns to drain away the savings of the restless spacemen who stopped for a day or a week, waiting for a new cargo or for ship repairs in the nearby Universal Yards.

Nathan's plan was fixed in his mind. He left Perseus at his lodgings and then headed for the taverns. The night's crowds were beginning to swarm in as he entered the first one.

It was hot and steamy inside, and the fog of smoke made it impossible to see the opposite wall. Bearded miners, lean adventurers, smooth fingered confidence men were the customers. Dance hall girls who had come from Earth for the adventure and stayed because of the utter dejection with which Venus filled them were the men's companions for the most part.

Nathan went directly to the bar and began ordering drinks. He grew more boisterous and his voice grew unsteady as he boasted and shouted of his good fortune in coming into possession of two of the Jewels of Chamar.

Then he left. He went to the next tavern and repeated the performance. During the night he made a tour of the taverns that would have done credit to old Thymar Ormondy himself.

And when the first light of Venusian dawn came he was stiff and immobile in the last of the taverns. The bouncers pitched him out into the mud and rain as the place closed up.

When he was alone Nathan rose and shook himself. He had accomplished his purpose. Every thug and murderer on Venus knew by now that Nathan Ormondy was going today to the secret cache of Jewels left by his father.

And Nathan knew that his father's killer would be not far behind as he moved up that mountain trail towards the cave in Lava Mountain.

He made his way through the mud and slime of the streets to his own lodging. There, after a quick bath and breakfast, he armed and checked the charge in each of two flame lances.

The weapons consisted of powerful electrodes with pistol grip handles. The electrodes were just less than eight inches in length and full charge was a thousand rounds. Nathan pocketed them solemnly, wondering if one of those charges would avenge his father's death.

He dressed in brown riding cape and donned a crimson helmet to make it easy to be followed. When he went out to the stable, Perseus seemed to sense the importance of their approaching mission and nickered eagerly.

Nathan let the horse have his head and they raced along the forest trail behind the city and upward to the hills. The tree branches overhead dripped water that was already stagnant. And somewhere in those trees Nathan knew that outlaws of four planets were silently watching, waiting for him to lead them to part of the fabulous treasure for which three generations of adventurers had searched.

His father's murderer was sure to be foremost among them.

Nathan wondered if he could have saved his father's life by following him to the starways years ago. Born aboard a spaceship, Thymar had never claimed any planet for his own. He had tried to raise Nathan to be a starman like himself, but Nathan had seen the advancing wave of civilization beating upon the shores of alien planets and knew the only sure foundation would be built by the engineers, not by the wandering starmen. So he had chosen to fight the battles of engineering on primitive worlds. He was following the starways in a sense, but it broke Thymar's heart when Nathan became "civilized."

Then seven years ago Thymar had dedicated the remainder of his life to the recovery of the fabled, mysterious Jewels of Chamar.

The story of the cursed Jewels was obscure. No one knew their origin. There was little more than the age old myth that to hold all seven would make a man master of the universe, but to hold less than seven would bring eventual death.

The latter at least was no myth, Nathan thought grimly.

The trail became steep as the trees thinned and the horse broke out upon the hillside. There was a moment of sunlight blinding in its beauty. Then dark clouds closed over again.

Nathan rode out along a ridge trail where he was silhouetted against the sky. He stood for a moment, making himself as conspicuous as possible to the unseen followers he knew were behind him. Ahead, the tall spire of Lava Mountain loomed against the gray blanket of the sky. It seemed near in its majestic might, but it was nearly midday when Nathan reached the foot of it.

The sight of the mountain at close range brought back a thousand memories to Nathan. He had spent much of his boyhood here and this was where Thymar had taught him in the rugged ways of living of the spacemen. Here he had learned from Thymar and Tabor to master the flame lance until there was hardly a spaceman that could match his skill.

The mouth of the great cavern was in sight now, high up on the face of the mountain. He hoped the narrow trail he and Thymar had so laboriously cut out was still there. It appeared to be. He guided the horse up the beginning of the steep cut.

He drew out one of the flame lances now and kept a sharp watch on the trail below. He knew that he was in no danger from anyone with a sense of calculation. That type of renegade would wait until Nathan had recovered the Jewels before attacking. But some brainless fool might try to pick him off now and search the cave on his own.

From far down the trail came the sudden clatter of rocks as a slide was started by a careless step, but no one was visible behind the ridges. Nathan had a clear view of his last hour's ride. So far, he was in the clear.

He looked cautiously at the cliff above him. Attack from that angle was not entirely impossible—especially if Firebird was in the vicinity. He knew she would not be with the followers behind him.

But now the last two hundred feet of the steep trail were before him. The great maw of the cavern was like a black cloud against the dirty white rock of the mountain. He touched his heels sharply to the flanks of the horse, and Perseus leaped up the incline in long jumps that carried horse and rider on into the black cave.

Instantly, Nathan leaped off and flung himself behind a giant stalagmite, half expecting a flame ball to be hurled at him from out of the darkness.

But a flame would have been welcome after the darkness and silence that pervaded the place. Only the distant sounds of the now emboldened pursuers came from the ridge below.

Nathan moved to the entrance and obtained his first glimpse of the pursuers. A battle skirmish had broken out between them. He had expected that. A man who had already killed for the Jewels would not welcome competition.

Nathan moved back and ordered the horse into a niche in the wall. He was dismayed somewhat by the number of men he had seen on the trail. There were at least twenty taking part in the skirmish and doubtless more were hidden from his sight. Determining the murderer would be difficult in such a mob.

The stalagmite which Nathan and his father had called the Stone Pig was nearly a half mile back into the mountain along a tortuous trail. He could not be sure that falling stalactites had not blocked the way, so Nathan was forced to risk a light after leaving the mouth of the cave.

The cave was hot. Steamy fog filled the air as he came at last to the small room of the Stone Pig. He knew that some of his pursuers must be near the cavern by now. He needed time to get to a hidden gallery overlooking the path they would have to traverse.

Nothing seemed changed from the time he had last been near the Stone Pig. The grotesquely formed stalagmite was shiny with moisture and its enigmatic grin seemed to challenge Nathan to find out the things it had seen while he had been gone.

A sense of excitement and anticipation seized Nathan despite his efforts to control his feelings. He thought of the boyhood days when he had hidden secret "maps" and strange and precious "formulae" beneath the Stone Pig. Now he was to see for the first time the fabulous gems that had cost so many lives, including his father's.

He pushed the stalagmite and it toppled over heavily. In the small, hollow space beneath it lay the same metal can that he had used so long ago. He pried open the lid.

There lay the Jewels—one green, one red.

But the gasp that escaped his lips at their sudden beauty was smothered in the sudden roar of deafening thunder that came from the cavern mouth far behind him.

He jerked to his feet. The air compression waves staggered him so that he tottered drunkenly for a moment and the sound battered his body. A flood of dust laden air flowed over him. Then gradually it settled about the chamber and there was only silence once more.

Nathan looked back at the box. A cleverly arranged switch had closed when he opened the lid, exploding the thunderous charge at the mouth of the cave. He struggled mentally with the problem of who had placed the explosive and the switch to seal the cave.

Perhaps Thymar had placed it as protection against robbery and his mind had been so affected by his wounds that he had forgotten it. Or someone might have planted it as a trap. But, if so, why were the Jewels left?

Almost forgetting that he was sealed in the cavern, he knelt down beside the box. The inner light of the Jewels pierced his eyes and seized his mind in a hypnotic trance. For an instant he thought he was gazing upon the beauties of some fair and alien world. In the red one there was a fantastic garden of Mars, but a Mars where no red sand clouds ever covered the cities with smothering death.

And in the green one he saw a fair and lovely vision of Earth so real it pierced him with nostalgia.

Then the visions faded. Whether he actually saw them or they were figments of imagination he never knew. But he had to shake his head and tear his sight away from the Jewels in order to pocket them.

Then, as he turned away, there broke upon the air a high-pitched song that trilled a moment's melody. It hung as if a crystal were suspended in the cavern, echoing its vibrations from chamber to chamber.

It came again. Nathan straightened and put out the light. He whipped out both flame lances.

It was the song of the Firebird.

III

Nathan darted out of the room of the Stone Pig, guided by his intimate knowledge of the cavern. He waited a moment by the entrance, listening in the darkness. Then he heard the soft scrape of a sandal against a rock somewhere. And a voice.

"Nathan Ormondy!"

It called his name softly, echoing in the cavern, and it was like no other voice he had ever heard. The music of its overtones was brilliant and glowing like the inner light of the Jewels of Chamar themselves.

"I have come for you, Firebird," said Nathan. "Ready your flame lance."

He darted away, expecting a flame to be hurled at the sound of his voice. None came. He waited, hoping Firebird would answer and give him a target.

That first sound of her voice haunted him. It was the loveliness of a spring day on Earth, the blue of the sky and the song of the birds—but it was the song of the Firebird, a song of death.

Then she answered. "I came to make peace, Nathan. Put up your lance and make a light."

He aimed in the darkness—and could not fire at that voice.

"Do you think I'm a fool?" he muttered savagely. It was to himself as well as to Firebird.

"You are a fool!" Firebird hissed in anger. "I came to you peacefully."

From across the chamber a ball of fire the size of an orange spurted with the speed of lightning. It splattered the wall two feet from Nathan. The heat of its explosion singed his cape to a shred. His face was scorched and his eyes blinded temporarily.

Nathan aimed again and unleashed a blast of his own, but it went wide for he did not even glimpse Firebird in its glow. He leaped away to hiding behind a large stalagmite.

"Listen to me!" the voice of Firebird commanded again. "I could have killed you then. My shot landed two feet to the left of you. Now will you hear what I have to say?"

"It's easy to call your shots after they are fired."

"Here's one neither to the right or left," said Firebird evenly.

Before she finished speaking a blast of flame burst over the huge stalagmite in front of Nathan. The fire of it flowed around the sides and enveloped him in a searing blanket.

For the first time, Nathan knew fear. The witch could see in the dark! He was at her mercy.

Her voice spoke more softly now. "Are you coming out from behind there or do I have to come and get you?"

"You'll have to come and get me—the same way you got my father."

He leaped away to still another stalagmite. He paused midway to unleash his own burst from the flame lance. It splashed against the cavern wall, but there was no answering fire.

He waited tensely in the darkness. Minutes passed. Surely he could not have killed the Firebird with that blast. The silence could only mean then that she was holding her fire, creeping up on him in the darkness.

"You have no excuse for my father's murder?" Nathan taunted. He slipped away to another protecting rock.

Then the voice of Firebird came again—and she hadn't moved! Nathan's eyes tried hopelessly to pierce the blackness to check the evidence of his ears.

Firebird said, "I was just wondering what I could say to a fool like you. If I killed your father for the Jewels why do you suppose that I didn't take them and go? Why should I have left them, and prepared the trap to destroy the cave mouth?"

"Is there anyone who knows the mysterious ways of the thief and killer, Firebird?"

"I have never stolen except from thieves. I have never killed—except murderers."

"My father was not a murderer!"

"And I did not kill him. Your father and I were partners for many years. We searched together for the Seven Jewels."

"I don't believe that. He warned me against you."

"Yes. Because we quarrelled. I'll tell you about it some day. Together, we found five of the Seven Jewels. One of his three was stolen by the murderer. Now, there are four of the Jewels equally divided between you and me. It is senseless for us to fight. There is power enough for us both when the Seven are ours. In return for your cooperation I promise to help you find your father's murderer. You know my reputation well enough to know what my promise means. And remember, I could have taken the Jewels instead of bargaining with you, but the Firebird is not a thief."

Nathan didn't believe a word of what she said, but he knew that if he continued to challenge Firebird with the flame lance it would not take her a dozen shots to find him in the darkness. Though he had been taught by Thymar he could not match such shooting. He would be lucky to find her with a hundred shots. No wonder her prowess had become a legend.

"I'll compromise—with one reservation," he said. "I think you killed my father. I know you can kill me here in the darkness. I don't know why you don't. I'll accept your offer, but unless you prove you did not kill my father, you and I will sometime again trade flames to the death."

"Done," said Firebird.

Almost instantly, a pink glow began filling the chamber. It was like the rising of the sun over one of Earth's quiet seas. There seemed to be the perfume of flowers in the air, and the song of birds.

There seemed to be the perfume of flowers in the air, and the song of birds.

And then Nathan realized it was Firebird's song—that high-pitched melody that caused a faint chill to race the length of his spine.

The glow, too, was coming from her. It heightened with a tremendous, terrifying crescendo. Nathan had heard babbling outlaws who swore drunkenly to having seen this sight.

He stood immobile now, not breathing in the face of the wondrous glory of that unfolding light. The Firebird herself was so dazzling that the pink radiance blinded him after the darkness, but when his eyes became accustomed to it he saw her.

She was small, almost tiny, and exquisitely shaped. Her head was encased in a close fitting silver helmet that did not prevent her flowing, raven hair from tumbling over the nape of her neck. As she stood there in the rising glow she seemed poised for flight.

A close fitting tunic that seemed to be of scarlet tinted mail protected her body, but her arms and legs were bare and from her very flesh the pink light was emanating.

Nathan murmured, half to himself, "Beautiful—and inhuman! Who are you?"

The Firebird smiled. And Nathan moved slowly towards her. It was incredible that such evil as he had heard of the Firebird could have come out of such beauty.

"Perhaps you shall know who I am some day. For now, our agreement does not call for that. Would you mind pocketing your flame lance before we go on?"

Nathan realized his hand still gripped the weapon and it was trained on the girl. It would take only a squeeze of his finger to erase her evil—

"Better not try it," she warned, and the smile did not leave her lips. He looked down at her hand. Her own weapon was trained with equal sureness upon him.

Instinctively, then, he knew that all the stories about the fabulous quick draw of the Firebird were true. If he so much as thought of killing her, her finger would squeeze the trigger of her flame lance a thousand times quicker than his.

He pocketed the weapon slowly and smiled at her.

"How do we get out?" he said. "Is the passage blocked?"

"Completely," Firebird said. "Or else the gentlemen who were so anxious to meet you here would have arrived by now."

"You planted the explosive?"

"Yes. I wanted our interview in private, not amidst a battle."

"How do you know there is any other way out?"

"Your father and I built it long ago."

Nathan remained silent. Was it only some purposeful fiction, or had his father actually been partners with Firebird?

She turned her back upon him and led the way out of the chamber by her own mysterious radiance. He could draw his flame lance now, Nathan thought. But it was only a thought. He wondered if he could ever seek vengeance upon such beauty regardless of what she had done in the past.

There was a temptation almost stronger than vengeance now, a temptation to see this whole affair all the way through—to find out the true identity of the fabled Firebird and the secret of the Seven Jewels of Chamar.

For a time they walked towards the blocked entrance, then they turned abruptly aside into a narrow passage. The slim Firebird passed through easily but for Nathan it was a tight squeeze that grew narrower as he went.

A strangling sense of claustrophobia seized him. He pressed almost frantically to get past the bottleneck. If this were a trap Firebird could shoot before he could get a hand near a weapon.

Then he saw her waiting for him ahead in the larger chamber to which the narrow passage led. She seemed to read his thoughts.

"Do you trust me now?"

"Does anyone really trust the Firebird—anyone on the nine worlds?"

The sudden sobering of her face was a terrible thing to see. She turned away so hastily that Nathan barely saw the expression, but he saw enough to know that there was weakness in her. She was not all iron strength. He saw enough to know that the incredible, storied Firebird had no friend in all the System and he knew what that fact meant to her.

IV

Nathan had never been in the part of the cavern which they were entering. He knew the narrow passage must have been covered by a thin shell of rock in his time.

They came at last into a chamber that was the equal in size of the main one. There was daylight visible and the pink radiance from Firebird began to die. When it was gone she seemed smaller and more fragile than ever. Only the little blue lights in her eyes seemed hard and unyielding.

Within the chamber Nathan stopped and gasped. There was the glistening, silver hull of a space cruiser. And high on the nose of it was the dread name: Corsair.

Corsair—the famed pirate vessel that had outrun every ship that had ever pursued it. In a hundred acts of piracy, the Firebird had escaped without leaving a trace by means of the Corsair.

She watched as he admired the ship. "Like it?"

"So this is the famous Corsair," he said, "—and your hideout. You must be sure of your ability to win me as an ally or to kill me."

"I am—sure of both. But I need you more as an ally. Shall we go in?"

The needle-like hull housed a long, spiral catway that led to the cabins and control room. Halfway to the nose Firebird showed Nathan a tiny cabin which he could use.

"You'll find a supply of clothing," she said. "I find it necessary to prepare for occasional guests who forget to bring luggage."

Guests taken from space liners in the midst of interplanetary space, Nathan thought. He wondered what had become of the many that the Firebird had kidnapped that way.

"And now the control room," she said. "I want you to become familiar with the operation of the ship."

All the ships that Nathan had ever known seemed like clumsy scows beside this splendid vessel. Every device known to space navigation and combat was in the equipment. And many instruments he failed to recognize.

"Who designed this ship?"

"My father."

"Father—" Somehow Nathan found himself unable to associate the Firebird with any of the normalcies of life. "Who was your father?"

Her smile was wry. "A man who was little known during his lifetime."

He didn't pursue the subject; they could go into that later. He said, "What I'm interested in is what do we do now?"

"We are going to find the other three Jewels. One of them is in the hands of your father's murderer. We do not need to worry about losing track of that because he will follow us."

"You know who it is?"

"Yes—but you would not believe me."

"Tell me!" He stepped forward, his big hands closing as if upon a throat.

"Our bargain," the girl reminded him. "The Jewels first—I swear we'll not lose him."

"The other Jewels—where are they, then?"

"One of them is buried inaccessibly in a mountain on Mars. The other is in the possession of one of three outlaws, all of whom are on Mars. I have traced it to one of them. So that is where we are going."

"How do you know who has them?"

"That's a long story," said Firebird, "and one that has cost many years of my life. And would have cost more without Thymar's help."

"I'd like to know more of your story about him. He never told me until he died that he had known you."

"It can wait."

Satisfied that the controls were in order, the girl turned her attention to the engines.

"There's trouble in the port motor," she said. "It can't be repaired with the facilities available to us here. We'll have to take a chance using it."

Nathan was about to protest, then changed his mind. He and his father had gone into space so often with decrepit and half worn equipment that it should have made no difference, but this vessel was so sleek and perfect that danger seemed to lurk in any minor imperfection.

Nathan strapped himself into the inertia-controlling chair next to Firebird. He studied the duplicate controls in front of him but kept his hands off.

Firebird started the warming coils to preheat the tubes. After a moment she adjusted the ignition controls and twisted the fuel valve.

Nathan felt as if he had been slapped suddenly with a giant pillow that pressed him flat in the chair. The acceleration of the Corsair was greater than any he had experienced before, and his father's old ship had never been equipped with inertia chairs.

He caught no glimpse of the edge of the cavern's maw as the ship passed upward through it. One instant they were in the cave, the next they were in the sky and only seconds passed until they were soaring above the thick cloud layer of Venus.

After five minutes of such intense acceleration, the Firebird relaxed and cut the controls to a point where they could breathe more easily.

"Why the hurry?" Nathan gasped. "Nobody is chasing us!"

Firebird made no answer. She reached towards the small panel at the lower edge of the control board and switched on the viewing plate. Silently, she scanned the heavens behind them and the surface of the planet they were leaving. The focus of the plate extended and retreated, then suddenly it concentrated upon a blunt-nosed black vessel rising somewhere below them.

"The Black Warrior," said Firebird. "He was watching for us to leave."

Nathan watched the black ship for hours while Firebird guided the Corsair. Steadily the strange vessel gained on them.

"We could outrun him easily," said Firebird, "if it weren't for that bad motor. Do you know how to handle light cruiser lances?"

"My father never carried a gun on his ship in his life."

"I remember," said Firebird. "How I used to argue with him. He said he wouldn't risk being caught by the police in an armed vessel, so he never came aboard the Corsair."

"Perhaps a wiser man than his son," said Nathan.

He told himself he wanted no part of this. He was an engineer, not a buccaneer. Yet as the black vessel approached he felt the thrill of its challenge. The challenge of combat in the impersonal depths of space.

His father had felt that challenge—the challenge of men and of space itself, and he had met it with his own bare hands. It was impossible for Nathan not to feel it.

They kept their steady pace at an acceleration something more than fifteen G's. Firebird gave Nathan brief instructions in the operation of the weapons and controls.

A viewing screen provided Nathan with sights. Its scale automatically corrected for the relative motions of the two vessels.

Abruptly, and without warning, the Black Warrior fired. The Corsair's defensive screens caught the blast with an absorption of energy that made the dissipators whine and grow incandescent.

"He's using high powered stuff," said Nathan. "Those screens can't take much of that."

"They weren't meant to. The Corsair's main defense is her speed. There wasn't room for heavy screens. This time our defense has to be better shooting. Watch this."

As she spoke, she caught the enemy ship dead in the sights and depressed the firing button. A cloud of bright vapor seemed to envelope the black hull. Then all was as before.

"He's got our screens beat," said Nathan. "We'll never get through them."

Firebird smiled. "That's the first time that's been said in the Corsair. I hope your pessimism doesn't jinx us."

The black ship was swinging back, maneuvering closer.

"Hang on!" Firebird exclaimed. She flung the Corsair into a tight turn and held it.

Simultaneously, she fired the four big lances in the stern and left a trail of flame balls that made it impossible for the enemy to follow in their wake. Then, forcing the ship into a close spiral, she nosed towards the black ship and fired the four forward lances together.

Nathan watched, his hands clenched to knuckle whiteness on the control panel, as the four flames combined and enveloped the enemy. This time the Black Warrior's screens flamed lividly. The big ship heeled crazily away, twisting under the forces unleashed upon it.

But the black ship was vicious in its death agonies. Nathan saw its beams lash out and yelled to Firebird, "Don't cross his stern!"

Firebird saw her mistake. Both of them twisted at the dual controls to swing the Corsair away from that cone of destruction into which it was plunging.

It was too late. They swept across the stern of the Black Warrior which was blasting with all it had. The Corsair's screen lit momentarily. Then the dissipators exploded in a crushing blast in the depths of the ship.

The interior of the control room came alive with flame. Firebird flung her hands before her face and her silver helmet was encased in a halo of fire.

What protected him, Nathan never knew, but he seemed to be just outside the sphere of burning destruction that burst through the walls of the control room in a hundred million pin pricks of flame. For an eternity he seemed frozen there watching the flame creeping over the slim form of Firebird—watching it burn and smother her.

Automatic cells closed the innumerable pin pricks made in the hull by the entering ions of fire. The control panel was blackened and burned. Then the flame-points faded out.

His hypnosis induced by the flame could not have lasted more than a fraction of a second, Nathan knew. But when he leaped out of the chair towards Firebird, he shuddered.

The bronze and pink of her flesh was burned to blackness.

It was impossible, he told himself numbly. This couldn't be the end of the storied Firebird. But it was. That charred corpse could never hold life again.

A poignant pain of sorrow filled him as he looked upon the figure and remembered the beauty of Firebird. He felt lost, and all the supreme purpose in their flight to Mars had ceased.

His mind drifted back to the scene in the cave when he had witnessed his father's death. He recalled the words his father had spoken—"You'll never rest until you have found all Seven of the Jewels—or death."

That's the way it had been with Thymar Ormondy. That's the way it had been with Firebird. All they had found was death.

Then, with a shock of horror, Nathan realized that was the way it would be with him, too. His father's words were true. He would never rest until he had found the secret of those evil Jewels or suffered the same fate that had befallen all the other spacemen who'd given their lives in that vain search.

But he'd find those Jewels, he knew. And someday he'd know the secret of the beautiful, the fantastic Firebird.

He wondered if his father's murder had been avenged with the death of Firebird. And he knew that he would never be sure as long as he lived.

Nathan cut the acceleration of the ship, and then bent over to unfasten the straps that held her in the inertia chair. Tenderly he picked up the light body that had held the strong will of Firebird.

He took a step towards the passage leading to the airlocks. And then he stopped in horror. The blackened lips of Firebird moved.

There was no sound. Only the ghostly movement of those lips to show that Firebird lived.

This was worse than death, Nathan thought. But she could not live long. He carried her to her own stateroom and laid her on the bed. He bent down and heard the faint beating of her heart.

From a cabinet he obtained salves and drugs to ease the pain when and if she regained consciousness. Even as he finished she began to stir.

She moved as if in tremendous pain, and facial expression was impossible for her. Her lips moved again. But there was no sound.

If she should live, he knew he ought to head for Earth where the only adequate medical facilities were. But it was a long journey to the other side of the sun this time of year. The defunct motor would make it even longer. It seemed impossible that she could survive the trip.

The lips of Firebird were still moving, and now Nathan caught the trace of a word. He bent closer. She repeated the same sound over and over again.

"Luline—Luline—" was the word she breathed.

It made no sense to him. He wondered if the name were that of some unknown relative—or if she were merely delirious.

"Luline—Luline—take me to Luline—"

He spoke gently into her ear. "Who is Luline?"

She struggled mightily within herself against the pain waves attacking her. She gasped, "Chart C-R-46. Luline."

Nathan raced to the chart room. There it was. On Chart C-R-46, circled in red, was the word "Luline" beside a tiny asteroid.

This was more incomprehensible than ever. Or was the asteroid a burial place for her mysterious clan?

He debated heading for Earth. And then another question arose as he thought of her burned and tortured body. Even if she could live would she want to? On Earth her existence would be in the double prison of iron bars and her own damaged body.

He set the course for the asteroid, Luline.

V

Slowly, in the depths of black space there swelled the blob of rock that was the half mile diameter of Luline.

As the ship approached, Nathan examined the surface through the screens for a clue to Firebird's reason for wanting to go there. But it looked the same as any other of the thousands of rocks floating through the spacelanes. The only unusual feature was a small bright spot that appeared to be about ten feet in diameter. It was centered in the bottom of a large depression on one side of the rock.

Firebird seemed to sense the presence of the asteroid as they neared. Her body twitched nervously. Or perhaps it was only her increasing battle with the powers of death.

When Nathan told her they had arrived she struggled to rise. She fell back helplessly. "The pool," she mumbled through lips that barely moved. "Bury me in the pool of Luline."

Though he had guessed it, Nathan was moved to pity because Firebird had known for so many hours that she was going to her own grave.

But he wondered what she meant by the pool of Luline. Was it that bright spot he had noticed? There could be no liquid out here in the depths of space.

It was difficult to land a familiar ship on an asteroid, and since Nathan had never landed the Corsair anywhere it was next to impossible to make an accurate landing. But the urgency of Firebird's desire told him it was worth the risk of taking the ship down upon the jagged surface of the strange little rock.

He swept around it in an ever narrowing spiral until he finally came low over the wide depression that held the shining "pool". He dropped the ship rapidly, braking the Corsair and letting it arc upwards to a stall.

Swiftly, Nathan cut the propulsion tubes. The forward brakes dropped the ship to the surface. The Corsair settled with a hard jolt. A poor landing but good under the circumstances.

Nathan hurried back to the stateroom of the Firebird. There he halted in the doorway at the sight that met his eyes. The Firebird had risen from the bunk and was standing in the middle of the room swaying like some disjointed robot, gibbering wildly through her nerveless lips. She was facing the port and shaking the stump of her hand at the shining pool visible outside.

Nathan caught her frantic words. "Air there—no suit—"

She was hysterical. He made up his mind. The life of Firebird was no more than a candle flame in a hurricane now. The least he could do was grant her final wishes. If she wanted him to end her life by thrusting her out into the cold of interplanetary space and bury her in the "pool" it would be only merciful.

He donned a space suit quickly and went back to Firebird. She had collapsed into unconsciousness and lay in a pitiful huddle in the middle of the floor. Perhaps she was already dead, he thought.

Carrying her, he entered the airlock and paused the moment it required for evacuation. It seemed to take an unusually short time to equalize the pressure, then he stepped out. He had expected the body of Firebird to become distorted and instantly frozen by the cold, but she changed not at all as he stepped to the surface of the asteroid, held down by the traction shoes of the suit.

He checked the thermometer on his sleeve. Only thirty degrees below zero, and not falling.

He approached the pool that glistened like a shining disc of metal in the brilliant sunlight. He kicked a stone onto it, and ripples arose. It was liquid, and very dense—like a pool of mercury.

He came to the edge and looked one last time at the face of Firebird, the once beautiful Firebird. Then slowly, she dropped from his arms into the pool.

He stepped back and watched. For an instant it seemed as if she lay in the surface, half-submerged and unmoving. Then slow fingers of waves rose about her and dragged her beneath.

Abruptly she was gone. It was as if she had disappeared into the surface of a mirror. The depths of the liquid were invisible. The unmoving surface reflected only the white-hot light of the pool into Nathan's eyes.

Firebird was gone. And with her disappearance there came to Nathan the conviction that there had been nothing evil in her. She had moved because she was driven by some wild and secret purpose that would not give her rest. A purpose bound up in the Seven Jewels of Chamar. And Nathan knew that somehow he would find the secret of the Jewels that had driven his own father to death.

He suddenly turned and ran back towards the ship. He wanted to get away as quickly as possible from this unreal world of Luline. It was a place that breathed the presence of strange and alien ghosts. He would come back, though—he would return to solve the mystery of Firebird after he had been to Mars and obtained the remainder of the Jewels.

The Corsair rose slowly from Luline. He let the great ship circle once about the mass of rock, then turned into space towards Mars. He focused his viewing screen and glanced back at the tiny rock. The pool reflected the sun's rays like a great heliograph. Even at this distance it was too bright to gaze at for long.

His only goal now was possession of all of the Seven Jewels. Firebird had not shown him her two, but he knew they were somewhere within the ship. The vision of the glorious depths of the two in his own possession constantly floated before him as he let his thoughts drift back to them. He understood now the spell to which his father had succumbed.

He reached to turn the viewing screen off, but glanced for one last time at the asteroid. Suddenly the light reflected from the pool flickered and wavered. It was as if some hand were holding a giant mirror and shifting it back and forth—flashing some mysterious message across the depths of space, he thought. No doubt it was due to some peculiarity of refraction caused by the remnant of air that seemed to lie with the cup of the depression.

He turned to the charts and concentrated on the course. He checked the position of Mars now and what it would be at his estimated time of arrival. He put the figures into the computer.

The answer came out fantastically wrong. He tried again and failed.

It was impossible to concentrate. And he knew why. That shifting reflection from the pool of Luline. That unintelligible message flashed across space.

It could have been caused by the breaking of the surface of the pool.

It had to be caused by that.

And it would haunt him forever unless he turned back. He swung the Corsair into a turn that blacked out his vision, but when he could see again he was headed for the asteroid once more.

He came in too fast. He had to circle twice to brake his speed. Then the Corsair sped down into the depression and over the pool.

Piloting required too much attention to keep a close watch on the shiny surface, but one brief glance brought a gasp from his throat. There was something lying at the edge of the pool that had not been there before.

His landing this time was made with a terrific jolt that rocked the ship. Then he entered the lock without waiting to don a spacesuit. He knew that Firebird had been right when she said it was unnecessary.

He kept the inner door of the lock closed to conserve the heat in the ship, but he swung the outer door open and plunged out.

He staggered in sudden pain as the shock of meeting that alien atmosphere swept over him. It was not atmosphere by any human standard. It was rarefied beyond capacity to support normal human life. He gasped in desperate breaths and the ice needles he breathed upon the air were sucked back in to spear his own lungs.

Black checkerboard screens flashed across his vision, but he could see now the object at the edge of the pool.

There was no questioning the instinct that had driven him to turn back the Corsair. Firebird lay huddled on the rocks by the pool.

She lay as if she had been running and had fallen forward on her face. Nathan reached her and turned her over. He stared in unbelief.

The swaths and bandages had vanished in the pool and her body lay white and cold under the strong light of the sun. There was not a mark on her. The mystic properties that lay in the strange pool had performed a miraculous resurrection and healed all traces of the ghastly burns.

Nathan did not know whether she was yet alive or dead. She was icy to his touch and unconscious, but he picked her up and started back to the ship.

The exertion in that atmosphere caused swirls of dizziness in his brain, and he did not even ponder the question of how gravity could be great enough to make walking possible. He expended every fraction of his draining energy to fight back to the ship.

At last he laid Firebird inside the lock of the Corsair and closed the outer door with the last dregs of his strength. Automatically, the lock began to fill with warm air until the inner door swung open.

Nathan's strength revived shortly. He turned to Firebird. Her black hair that spilled over the floor of the lock looked as if it had never been touched by the destroying fire. Her face was molded in the same lines of perfection as before. And her flesh was beginning to glow with the pink of life. The final miracle showed itself in her breathing. She was alive.

He carried her into the stateroom and wrapped her in blankets. Her body was still icy from her long exposure. He started to move away to get a hot drink when she should revive. Then her eyes opened.

She looked wildly about, then stared at him. "I thought you had abandoned me. Did your conscience get the better of you?"

The hardness of her voice shocked him. He looked at her in pained surprise. "I thought you were dead. I saw the flickering of the light from the pool when you came out of it. I came back then only because I couldn't believe you had really died."

"Of course. You couldn't really know, could you?" Abruptly she was crying. He sat down and took her hand.

"There is no one else in the System who would not have been glad to leave Firebird there forever," she said.

Nathan made no reply. He could not comprehend her strangeness. But for the moment she was no longer the fearless Firebird. She was a little girl, lonely and lost.

VI

Mars was wholesome in death before the coming of the spacemen. Now it was the refuse heap of the Solar System.

There was Heliopolis, of course, the great, shining, chrome-plated space port where vessels from all parts of the System touched for refueling and recreation of the passengers. Recreation that was not legal on any of the other planets.

The permanent population of Heliopolis was three fourths confidence men. The other fourth was made up of fugitives from penal colonies and thieves and murderers whose crimes had not caught up with them.

But these were the elite of the population of Mars. The lower types were found in the five suburbs surrounding Heliopolis.

The worst of the five was Taurus, where daily morning chores was burial of those who had been unfortunate in the night's tavern brawls.

As the Corsair approached the red planet Nathan wondered where the incomprehensible Firebird fit into this wild and evil city. But she claimed it for home. Regarding the miracle of Luline she had refused to say a word and his repeated inquiries only forced her to greater reticence and widened the gap between them until he was forced to give up.

It was night on that side of Mars when they dropped the Corsair onto the crowded field at the edge of Taurus. Amid the other vessels the ship stood like a jewel in a handful of gravel.

There was always a pause in the activities of the field when the ship of the Firebird came in. Attendants straightened up to stare, and wizened, space-burned adventurers paused when Firebird strode out of the port. She went down the ramp as if she were making a grand entrance into a ballroom. A thousand eyes were upon her, from corners of the field, from shops and all night eateries, and from the hulls of silent ships.

She was a living legend walking in their midst.

She gave instructions for the needed repairs to the Corsair, then the two of them started towards the town only a quarter of a mile away.

"What happens next?" said Nathan.

"Almost anything, but whatever it is it will require the use of your flame lance. Keep it handy. There will be a lot of waiting and listening. If you wait long enough you can hear all the secrets of the innermost chambers of the System revealed right in the taverns of Taurus.

"Our plan will be to let it be known that we have the four Jewels and are here for the other three. There'll be happenings enough after that. I'll leave it to you to spread that information."

Nathan did not question her further. They had arrived at the garish entrance to the "Orbit", a two story tavern a little larger than its neighbors. Nathan had heard his father mention the place as the unofficial headquarters of half the brigands on the spaceways.

The noise of gambling and of drinking and tavern music poured out upon them as they neared the place beneath the red brilliance of the sign overhead.

As Firebird stepped through the door, she threw back the crimson cape and tipped her chin a trifle higher. The tinkle of gambling chips and glasses halted and the babble of noise hushed. Firebird strode towards the bar, unmindful of the stares.

Nathan came more slowly. He heard whispering, first at Firebird, then at himself. His hands stayed close to his flame lances.

At the bar, the squat-faced bartender, Louey, was pale and flushed by turns. His mouth gaped at Firebird as she said, "Tokeela, please."

Louey chattered, "You're supposed to be dead. Somebody seen you. You were dead for sure."

"And now I'm alive for sure. I don't know what you are talking about, but hurry with that Tokeela."

Louey shook his head as if to clear the vision he had seen. He brought the drink and some of the same for Nathan who was surprised that the place even served the mild, nonintoxicating drink.

Nathan wondered about Louey's remark. How had the rumor of Firebird's death been started? What was its significance?

As they picked up their glasses the babble slowly resumed, but Nathan knew they were still the center of attention.

Heavy smoke clouds rolled against the lights like miniature thunderheads. Through it Nathan watched the pale faces of the women who seldom saw daylight, and the bronze leathered faces of the spacemen. He could see them wondering who he was and if he were with Firebird, for he had not spoken to her since they had come in.

Firebird made it clear. She turned abruptly and faced the room. "Folks, I want you to meet Nathan Ormondy. You all knew his father. Thymar was killed on Venus and Nathan has come to take his place on the spaceways. Come up and have a drink to the new spaceman, who is as good a man as his father ever was."

The music died. The room seemed to freeze.

Nathan stared at Firebird. She was smiling as if at some secret joke. The little fool, Nathan thought. She knew this would happen. Even his limited knowledge of their codes told him that much.

A big bronze spaceman at the nearest table looked up from his cards. "We don't let women buy our drinks," he said. He turned back to the cards.

Nathan swore under his breath. What was Firebird trying to do? But it was his move now.

The big spaceman picked up a card from his hand and moved to throw it on the table. The card vanished in midair and flakes of ash fell to the table. He glanced up at Nathan's flame lance carelessly resting against his hip.

"Perhaps you would accept an invitation from me," said Nathan slowly.

The spaceman eyed him narrowly. "We don't let women buy our drinks," he said.

His eyes didn't shift, and Nathan's seemed to flicker only for an instant. But it was long enough for the cards in the spaceman's hand to puff into flame. He dropped them frantically.

His face lighted with rage and he half rose from his chair, but he said nothing. Nathan's lance hung in the same position.

"I think it would be a good idea for you and me to be friends," said Nathan.

"Yeah," said the spaceman, "it could be a good idea at that."

He rose and stepped slowly to the bar. "Straight Scotch for mine," he told Louey. He turned to the rest of the crowd. "Come on up, folks. My friend here is buying us drinks."

The hubbub resumed slowly as the crowd followed his leadership to the bar. The spaceman edged close to Nathan.

"Name's Tompkins," he said. "Kind of taking after your old man, I see. Hanging around with the Firebird, I mean. I knew Thymar pretty well when he was trailing her skirts. Kind of always figured that he did the trigger work and she got the reputation."

His loud drawl drew the other spacemen in a ring that was growing tighter about Nathan. It was an old move.

"Please don't crowd," said Nathan. "There isn't room at the bar for everybody, but there is plenty of drink."

The men glanced at Tompkins.

"Sure. Don't crowd," said Tompkins. "The boy's a little trigger nervous tonight. Maybe going to do your first job for Firebird, huh? Does she allow you gambling and drinking money?"

Nathan lifted his glass slowly and studied Tompkins and the men about him. He could feel the unplumbed depths of emotion that was being turned upon him.

Then he got it. It was their pent up resentment and hatred of Firebird. They would not have dared bait her like this. It would have led to shooting, and none of them wanted to be known as her killer.

Their own peculiar codes were responsible for this. Dueling with Firebird would be open admission that she was their equal. She was perfectly safe in the tavern full of thieves and killers who would have welcomed news of her death at the hand of someone else.

Nathan felt like laughing at himself for considering himself something of a noble protector as he had entered the "Orbit" behind Firebird. In reality, she was safe, but the spacemen didn't mean for him to be alive when he left.

"You've got me all wrong, gentlemen," said Nathan. "I think Firebird killed my father and I'm stringing along to keep tabs on her. And we have a little agreement that might interest you. Between us we have four of the Seven Jewels of Chamar—"

Instantly, the smirking, taunting grins became frozen deadliness. The circle pressed inward.

"I wouldn't come any closer," Nathan advised.

"Four of the Seven!" exclaimed Tompkins. "I think you're a liar."

"We'll take care of that later," said Nathan. "We've come to get the other three. Then we'll settle who is to keep them, as well as the matter of my father's murder. I mention it because I thought some of you gentlemen might help us. In fact, you might have one or more of the Jewels right here in this room. We'll be glad to relieve you of them."

There was a dangerous trick with a flame lance that Nathan had learned from his father. The flame could be made to reflect from a wooden surface if the angle of incidence and the intensity of the beam were just right.

Nathan had watched the play building up in the circle about him. It was almost ready to go. Behind Tompkins, one of the spacemen had carefully drawn his flame lance. Nathan knew it by the slow movement of the man's shoulders and his attempts to keep his eyes carelessly forward.

Tompkins was keeping close against the man, one arm on the edge of the bar. In a moment the point of the lance would appear at Tompkins' waist and blast—as soon as Nathan's attention was turned away from Tompkins.

Carefully, Nathan weighed his chances. He had about a fifty-fifty chance of coming out alive. He wondered just why Firebird had devised such a trap. Right now she was sitting alone at a table on the opposite side of the room, apparently not paying any attention to what was going on.

He gauged his distance from the killer and moved a step closer to Tompkins while draining his glass. Then he swung suddenly away, turning his back on Tompkins. In the faces of the men surrounding him he could see the sudden change of expression, which they could not hide.

He called the bartender. "Fill up again, Louey. All around. I feel lucky tonight."

Simultaneously, his hand dropped carelessly to his side and twisted the pocket of his flame lance to point the electrode behind him. His little finger locked around the trigger and pressed.

A sharp scream arose from behind Tompkins and a flame lance clattered to the floor. Nathan whirled. Both his lances were in front of him when he faced Tompkins.

But Tompkins was staring down at the dead killer. And he was searching frantically for the source of the shot. Then his glance fell on the charred wood of the front of the bar where Nathan's reflection shot had turned.

At first his unbelief was amusing. Then anger came like a hurricane across his face.

The spacemen were hungry for a brawl. A hunching of Tompkins' shoulders would send them rushing. Nathan could kill perhaps a dozen before they got him. But there would be little satisfaction in that.

He said quietly, "I'll get you first, Tompkins. Better call off your dogs."

Tompkins hesitated. If he gave the signal, Nathan would kill him first. If he failed to give it, some drunk spaceman's shot might easily find his back.

Then a bellowing interruption solved Tompkins' problem for him. A newcomer burst into the tavern and grasped the scene.

He laughed with a gentle thunder. "Ho—I come to look for the son of Thymar and find him holding up the brawlingest joint on all Mars—including my old friend Trigger Tompkins!"

Nathan glanced out of the corner of his eye as Tabor strode forward.

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.

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.

IX

The bloody dawn of Mars lit the ruins of Pheme as they sped past it again. Though they had not slept they did not feel sleepy as daylight came.

Their attack and the acquisition of the Blue Jewel left two horrible alternatives in Nathan's mind. If it had been Tabor who had attacked them surely he had not known their identity and would not have fired on them if he had. In this case, Nathan had slain his father's lifelong friend without cause.

Or if it had not been Tabor it meant that Tabor possessed the sixth Jewel—the pink one—and was the murderer Nathan sought.

He thrust both thoughts out of his mind and forced himself to think of the task ahead. The peaks of the Pater Mountains were not even visible on the horizon. Soon the heat of the desert day made itself felt. They switched on the air conditioning after Nathan patched the hole in the cabin housing.

They ate as they drove, and in the afternoon, Firebird explained the course and they alternated driving and sleeping.

Near sunset they glimpsed the distant, ominous crags of the Pater Mountains. They looked like some gargantuan graveyard where the stark bones of giants had been heaped.

The wind was rising and spinning sheets of sand from the desert surface. The sandstorms of Mars are not simply the whipping, wind-driven sands of Earth. They are mighty electrical storms in which clouds of sand gather in the sky and are charged with millions of volts of potential by their ceaseless grinding against one another.

It grew dark quickly with the sand clouds masking the twilight. Streamers of fire began to lace the mountain top. A continuous purple corona gave it the aspect of luminescence.

The mountain rose slowly out of the desert and the sand gave way gradually to a trail of broken rocks that ground and protested against the runners of the sled.

"We'll go from here on foot in the morning," said Firebird. As she brought the sled to a halt she leaped quickly out and started tugging at a huge boulder nearby.

Nathan stared in puzzlement. The boulder slowly tipped on its side, exposing a small cavern.

"We'll hide the sled in here. I'll show you why in the morning."

They prepared a place to sleep for the night and alternated watches. At dawn they gathered their packs of food and water and the weapons. Firebird carefully closed the cavern over the sled.

She led the way along the trail that soon rose to increasing heights above the desert. They came across the burned and blackened ruins of a sand sled, destroyed with all its equipment.

"That belonged to someone who came up here for the first time as well as the last," said Firebird. "There is no love lost between searchers for the Seven Jewels. They burn each others' sleds when found."

The corona lightning increased with terrible streamers of blue and violet light that twisted about the peaks like living things. The air was charged with ozone and Nathan felt the dry crackling of electric discharges in his hair and on his body.

Firebird abruptly left the trails and struck out across the face of the mountain. Nathan followed and soon they came to a large overhanging rock. They slipped beneath the overhang and came into a narrow, half-enclosed passage.

"Get behind me now and watch carefully," said Firebird. She turned and faced the opening under the overhang. "We may not have too long to wait."

Nathan didn't quite understand, but he waited in silence. Beyond the opening, the rocks were gathered round to form a sort of small vestibule and nothing could be seen beyond that.

But abruptly a man appeared in the vestibule. Firebird shot him without warning.

"I just saved twenty lives," she said through thin lips. "Robert the Dog has killed five innocent men that I know of. He could have been expected to kill twenty more if he had lived ten more years."

Nathan stared from the body of the dead man to the marble face of Firebird as she sat there—judge and executioner. They waited an hour and another man appeared. She killed him, too.

"I've saved his mother the agony of knowing him hung for treason. The police have been ready for a month to pull him in."

They waited until midday, but no one else appeared. At last Firebird turned and advanced cautiously along the passageway. Nathan felt now that killers lurked behind every stone. He didn't need Firebird's warning to keep a sharp lookout.

They crept along a mile of the tortuous trail beneath the copper sky, then dipped suddenly into the blackness of a cavern. The ghostly corona that hovered over the mountain provided a faint gleam in the darkness but scarcely enough to guide them.

"Take my arm," said Firebird. "I can make it in the dark."

Nathan felt the tremor that was in her slight body. Some emotion beyond the grasp of his senses was surging through her. But he felt that before they left the cavern he would know what it was.

After a time they came to a spiral ramp that seemed to be endless as it dropped them into the depths of the purple glow. Suddenly Firebird placed Nathan's hand on the Jewel pouch. It was faintly warm.

"The buried Jewel?" Nathan whispered.

"No—the Pink one. We're still not far enough in. Your father's murderer was waiting for us somewhere inside. He's following us now."

Nathan was filled with pain for either he had slain Tabor unjustly or else he would shortly kill him to avenge the murder of his father.

The ramp leveled out shortly and they made a sharp turn. Then Firebird halted. "This is where we stop. Be careful. He's behind us somewhere."

"Yes, right behind you."

Out of the darkness came the unmistakable voice of Tabor.

Nathan whirled, reaching for his guns, but Firebird gave him a mighty shove that sent him sprawling into the corner of a deep niche in the cavern wall.

"I thought you went to Venus," Nathan gasped in hate and rage. "What do you want, Tabor?"

"The Jewels of Chamar. I'm your friend and your father's friend, Nathan, but first I'm a spaceman, and the Jewels of Chamar are above all friendship to a spaceman. Still, I'm an honorable man. I'll fight you for them, Nathan."

"Why didn't you just shoot us in the back as you did my father?"

"Why will you misunderstand me, Nathan? I had to do what I did to force Thymar to reveal where he had hidden the Jewels of Venus. He always said it was better for just one man to know that at a time. I agreed with him, but it was too bad that we didn't have the same man in mind."

"You dirty killer—"

"He'll accept your challenge on one condition," said Firebird. "Provided that you place the Pink Jewel in here in a pile with the others."

"You'll accept on no conditions at all!" roared Tabor, "if I say so. But I'd rather like to see them all together. Put them on the floor."

Firebird placed the five Jewels on the floor. Their rainbow phosphorescence seemed to Nathan to be a living force that touched him with strength and with peace.

From his hiding place behind a jagged boulder Tabor threw in the Pink Jewel and it landed beside the others. "Now, I've got something to fight for—!"

Firebird's flame lance aimed at the point where she had first seen the glowing Pink Jewel. A bubble of flame exploded.

Tabor's bellowing laugh ended in a roar of anger. "I'd know your touch anywhere, Firebird. Your honor was born in a pig pen."

Nathan tried to sense the direction of the sound. Then he aimed the rifle carefully. A ball of flame spattered upon the boulder and washed over its edges. He engraved the lighted scene in his mind.

"That was you, Nathan? You remember well what I told you about blackout combat. Use the rifle to illuminate the scene of battle. That is good. But do you remember what a rifle flame will do in a small space?"

Instantly, a rifle flame sped towards them. It blasted against the wall of the niche and flowed around in a sheet of blinding whiteness that gave off an intolerable heat before it died.

Nathan and Firebird crouched low at opposite sides of the opening.

"We'll have to get out," she whispered. "You take the right and I'll take the left, and we'll close in on him. Get behind cover as soon as possible."

"No! You can't risk that. It would be impossible to find cover before he illuminated you in a rifle flame. Let me try one more thing."

He sent another shot higher than the previous one. It burst upon the floor far behind Tabor. Nathan got a glimpse of a distant boulder directly behind the spot where Tabor was hidden.

Before he could shoot again another blast exploded within the niche. In its light, Nathan saw that Firebird was gone.

A wave of terror, an anxiety such as he had never known before, swept through him at the thought of her out there in plain view of Tabor. He aimed carefully with his small flame lance and tried to visualize the small boulder behind Tabor.

The flame hit and crashed away. Tabor's voice grunted, "A reflective shot? Good work, Nathan. Unfortunately I wasn't in the plane of incidence and reflection. And, Firebird, I hear you coming."

A sudden flame shot off towards the depths of the cavern at Nathan's left. There was a single agonizing scream in Firebird's voice.

Then nothing.

Tabor broke the silence. "Sorry, Nathan. I guess you'd gone pretty soft on her."

"You murderer!"

"Keep cool. Remember what I always taught you. Never let an enemy make you commit suicide by making you lose your head."

The niche was like a coffin in the darkness. Tabor's evil taunting and Firebird's scream seemed to combine in an echoing song of torment that swelled and beat upon his senses.

And then, in the purple darkness, the six Jewels that lay on the floor seized his attention. Where their color had seemed merely phosphorescent before, it now seemed to blaze up as if hidden fires had come to life. Nathan watched to make sure his eyes were not merely becoming more accustomed to the darkness. But it was more than that. The light pulsed and rose in the niche. It climbed the walls and filled the air with twitching streamers that seemed like living things.

And it was making him an easy target for a reflective shot from Tabor. But what did it matter what happened to him now that Firebird was gone?

He fired a half dozen shots in rapid succession.

"Wild, all wild," taunted Tabor. "You must do it with precision. Like this!"

A flame shot through the niche, but it ricocheted from the edge of the opening and missed Nathan's head by only a foot. The blast seared his face and blinded his eyes.

"See what I mean?" said Tabor.

He had the range now, Nathan knew. That's what the rifle shots had been for—to enable him to determine a good spot to make a reflective shot into the depths of the niche.

But in his own wild shots Nathan had glimpsed something that gave him new hope.

He had to move quickly. Another shot from Tabor grazed close to him, but it reflected from the opposite side of the opening where Tabor had miscalculated that Nathan would move.

Nathan said nothing, but dropped to the floor. He adjusted the rifle to automatic fire, and lay in the opening of the niche. He pressed the trigger and a river of fire swept across the floor and flowed about the base of the boulder that hid Tabor—and under it!

The boulder rested on narrow, jagged faces, between which there were openings. It was through these that Tabor had been firing and Nathan had glimpsed the secret of his protection.

The flame raced about Tabor in a torrent of light. It leaped upon him and outlined him as if in St. Elmo's fire.

He jerked up in searing pain, and in that instant a single shot came from across the cavern and found its mark. The fire died before Tabor fell, but the sound of his dead body smashing to the floor was loud in the dark silence.

"Your father's murder is avenged," said a voice from across the cavern.

"Firebird. I thought—"

"I had to make you think what I made Tabor think. I threw a stone to give him a target. There was no protection out here. I had only one shot to risk."

Nathan rushed towards the sound of her voice, and crushed her close to him to reassure himself that she was unharmed. In the light of the Jewels that was now pouring from the niche he could almost see her face. It seemed rich with gladness.

The light was flickering now like auroral curtains of fire.

"What is it?" murmured Nathan.

"Wait—you'll see. This is what I've lived for. My work is finished now."

It seemed to Nathan that they stood there for an interminable length of time while the light rose and fell, but gradually swelled until they could see each other plainly.

There came a high note like the far away tinkling of chimes. The Jewels were rising from the floor. Firebird's hand on his arm restrained Nathan from rushing forward.

"Wait," she commanded.

The Jewels rose higher and then they began to float out of the niche towards the two Earthlings, carrying their ghostly light with them.

The Jewels rose higher, carrying their ghostly light with them.

Nathan stared. Where there had been only six Jewels in the niche, there were now seven floating in the air. Three were end to end, forming a vertical pillar. Around this pillar the other four formed a rotating square. As it rotated faster or slower the pitch of the musical note rose or fell.

The singing, floating Jewels came nearer ... vibrating with the forces of life. And then out of the midst of them a voice spoke.

"You have done well. You have my gratitude. I shall reward you."

Nathan felt a prickling of the back of his neck. And suddenly Firebird clutched his arm and was sobbing faintly. "Are we too late?" she asked.

"The ship of Plar has waited long, but the Envoys are patient. They await my report."

The Jewels wheeled in the air and sped towards the tunnel ramp that bore upward to the surface.

"Come," the voice said.

Mechanically, Firebird followed. Nathan moved beside her, not looking back at the fallen Tabor.

"What is it?" Nathan whispered hoarsely. "Are the Jewels alive?"

"Long ago," said Firebird, "the Envoys of Plar came into our System. They came from a universe so far away that our greatest telescopes have never given a clue to its presence. The inhabitants of that world are life forms with a basis of metallic salts and they are formed as you see this one. They are literally Jewels. The life forces are contained in mighty storage cells of raw electronic energy reduced to its simplest form. Some of the creatures are only single Jewels. The Envoys are of the highest type, having seven.

"The life in them was dormant until they were brought together again. The Seventh Jewel was the brain so to speak. Each of the others might be likened to an arm or other organ of a human body, though that is far from accurate. The warming of the Jewels as they were brought nearer was the reaching out of their mutual life forces to seize upon each other. But no controlling life was there until the Seventh was near. It was buried deep in the ground, but the attraction between it and the other six was enough to draw it out to reunite with them."

Nathan watched the weird form as it gyrated in the air before them and lighted the way through the caverns. "What does it mean?"

"Centuries ago—in our time—the Jewel Beings of Plar left on an expedition to explore the universe and study the inhabitants of the planets they came to. They found their science and skill to be so vastly superior to any other that they contacted, that they decided to help the backward peoples they found and share their science with those who could benefit by it. They hoped to speed the evolutionary advances of these races and some day establish a congress of the worlds. To those who had no space flight they revealed the secret of the art. And so on with other arts and sciences."

"Do they intend to make such gifts to the Solar System?"

"Their decision to help a race is determined by the report of one of the Envoys who is placed on a world for secret investigation. Chamar, the seven-jeweled one, was the Envoy placed to report on Earth and the Solar System."

"Chamar! But how did he get scattered? Wasn't that like death to him?"

"They are nearly immortal. Chamar was left here by the expedition and the rest of them went on. My grandfather was the first to whom Chamar revealed himself. But soon after that the Envoy was blasted in a laboratory explosion. My grandfather died of the injuries received there, but first he told my father about the Envoy.

"My father didn't know what the reaction of the other Envoys would be when they returned, but he felt they would deny the Solar System their gifts unless Chamar were restored to them. He spent the rest of his life in the search. When he died he passed on the responsibility to me. He forced me to swear I'd spend my life in the search. And I have done it willingly, for Earth will receive gifts beyond man's wildest dreaming."

"But the myth of the Seven Jewels has been in existence for nearly two hundred years!" Nathan exclaimed.

Firebird was silent. They came out of the purple darkness into daylight again. The Envoy was barely visible in the light but the constant, high-pitched note told of his presence.

"The legend of Firebird is almost that old, too," she said.

"But there are supposed to have been many who called themselves Firebird. Surely you—" Nathan halted and stared at her.

"There has been only one Firebird," she said. "Chamar made one gift to my grandfather before the explosion. That was the pool of Luline. When I was only fifteen my father took me to it and I dipped in it for the first time. Besides its miraculous healing properties, the pool slows the rate of decay of animal organisms. It gives a natural life of a thousand years. It changes human tissue. You have seen the light that comes from my flesh, and you have seen me walk unharmed in the flames at Pheme, as well as witnessing my vision in the dark. All these are of the pool of Luline. But in a hundred and fifty years I have aged only ten."

The end of the hidden trail brought them out onto the rocky mountainside. They walked until the sharp tinkle of bells swelled upon the air. Their eyes focused in the space ahead of them. At first they could see nothing. Even the Envoy of Plar had become lost in the sunlight.

Then they caught the silken sheen of the almost invisible surface of the globe that hung in the air above the trail. The ship of Plar.

They knew instinctively that its substance was no material they could identify. Rather, it was a pure field, a segment out of another time, another space that hung there. It was massive, its dimensions uncertain.

Then a familiar sound came close to them in midair and they turned quickly.

"They have come," Chamar said. "I have given my report and now they are debating your case."

"Must they debate?" Firebird's voice was suddenly thin and a strange tremor was in it. "Is there doubt of their granting the gifts which they have?"

"Each world must stand upon its own merits."

"But you are one of them. Can you not tell us?"

"I am not permitted to vote upon a world which I have examined. That is the law."

The Envoy was suddenly motionless in the air before them, and a wild tinkling seemed to come from within the great invisible ship of Plar. An answering sound came from the Envoy.

"Envoy! What is it?" cried Firebird.

"They have come to a decision."

"The Gifts—?"

"Are not to be given."

There was no physical change in Firebird. Only her voice seemed as if her spirit had flown. "What have we done?" she asked.

"Not you—all the races of the System," said Chamar. "I have seen them all, felt their thoughts, known their actions in the century and a half that I have been here. I had to report the wars and bloodshed and thievery and hate that I have seen. I knew the Envoys would not grant their Gifts to such a System as yours."

"Is there only evil?" said Firebird. "Is there no good?"

"Not all is evil. But too much is. In a world where too many men want to rule all other men, we cannot bring powers that would be only a curse to you. Your eyes are too weak to stand the brightness of their light. Your backs lack strength to carry their burden. In ten thousand you may be ready, but until then the Envoys shall not return."

There was a moment of silence, then the Envoy spoke kindly. "You, Firebird, what would you do? Your self-chosen mission is completed."

Firebird's head came up slowly. "My mission is not completed. It has not even begun. I can shorten that ten thousand years. I'll stand in the way of a thousand men who would have it long. You'll come back to this System quicker because of me."

"That is good," Chamar said, and they imagined he was smiling benignly upon them. "That is what I hoped you would say. Because of your decision I shall stay even though my companions must go. I shall be near you all the rest of the days of your life, and when you want my help it shall be yours for the asking. Powers that I cannot give to you will be used for you. You won't see me always for I shall do my own work, but wherever you are, call upon me and I will answer. I go to arrange with my companions."

The creature sped into the bubble of light and vanished from their sight. The bubble itself lifted from the surface and burst into the sky, leaving them alone.

The cold wind of the desert broke upon them and whipped their cloaks about their bodies. They stood as if still in a trance, but Nathan moved slowly down the trail after a moment, drawing Firebird by the arm.

They did not speak until they came to the sled. It was safe in the hiding place where they had left it. Nathan climbed behind the wheel and pointed the nose of the sled across the desert towards the far cities of Heliopolis and the Five Towns.

The sled hissed over the sands, rocked between the high dunes and challenged the desert winds. And there was exultation in that challenge.

He spoke at last. "Where are you going, now? Is this the end of Firebird?"

She shook her head and smiled wanly at him. "There'll never be an end to the Firebird. By the time I am dead the legends will be so fabulous that they will never die. I'll make the name of Firebird a name to be feared among thieves and murderers in the high and low place of society. I'll fight the cause of justice in the realms where the law can never reach. Firebird will be the name to scourge evil on the spaceways.

"And what of you, Nathan? Your father's murder is avenged. Will you return to Venus?"

She was trying to smile, but Nathan turned and saw the smile waver on her lips, and his heart beat harder because he thought he knew why it wavered.

There was in her mind the vision of endless centuries with no one to share her secret, no one to love—except the cold Jewel Being from Plar.

Nathan touched her hand. "I suppose I'll go back to Venus now and then. But there's somewhere else I must go first."

"Where?"

"To the Pool of Luline. Do you think I'm going to let you live the rest of that thousand years alone?"