Silver Master

Chapter 38

THE OLD, DIMLY LIT STEPS LED STRAIGHT DOWN TO A jagged gouge in the catacomb wall. Davis could see the slice of eerie green light waiting at the bottom. Hollings was just ahead of him, a dark figure bounding down the two-hundred-year-old staircase.

A few seconds later Hollings stood silhouetted briefly against the emerald glow. Then he vanished into the tunnels. Davis leaped the last few steps and went through the opening at a run. He had to keep Hollings in sight. He didn’t have the man’s amber frequency. Without it and minus one of the new locator devices, he wouldn’t be able to track Hollings if he lost visual contact.

But when he got through the ragged hole in the wall, he had no trouble spotting his quarry. Hollings wasn’t trying to flee deep into the catacombs. Instead he was going through another, man-sized opening in the green quartz wall.

Humid heat and the chaotic scents and sounds of the rain forest spilled out into the tunnel. Nothing else followed. The thick foliage grew right up to the opening, but not a single stray leaf or vine drifted out into the tunnel. No creatures wriggled or slithered through the gap. The invisible psi barriers the aliens had installed to keep the jungle from invading the catacombs held fast.

The wall of psi had no effect on humans. Hollings fled through the gate into the rain forest. He looked like a man who knew where he was going, a man with a plan.

Davis went after him, moving from the sterile green quartz tunnel into the verdant rain forest in a single stride. When it came to pursuits, the jungle was no better than the catacombs. In the tunnels a man could vanish by going around a corner. Here in this underground world of green, he could disappear by concealing himself behind one of the vine-choked trees.

Hollings was making no effort to hide, however. He shoved his way frantically through a forest of tall fern trees. Davis followed, opening his hunter’s senses. He probed for the telltale whisper of dissonance energy that would be all the warning he got before he blundered into a ghost river or a psi storm.

Hollings showed no such hesitation. He had obviously come this way on other occasions and felt confident that the path was clear of ghost energy and other hazards.

Davis was less than ten feet away when Hollings stopped and whirled around.

“This is far enough,” Hollings said. He raised one hand, aiming the ruby amber relic as though it were a gun. “You’re a dead man, Oakes.”

It wasn’t the threat that made Davis pause; it was the slashing wave of psychic energy that slammed across his senses, deadening them.

“You fool,” Hollings shouted. “You have no conception of the kind of power I can wield down here.”

Another tsunami of psi crashed across his numbed senses. Everything started to darken around him.

Try concentrating all of your psi power on something linked to your survival instinct.

Celinda. He seized on the name like a talisman. It glowed like a jewel in the gathering night.

Another ferocious wave of energy slammed through him. This time everything went black except for Celinda’s name.

Names have psychic power. He did not know how he knew that, but he was absolutely certain of the knowledge. Celinda’s name had the power he needed to fight the onrushing tide. He concentrated on it.

At first it was only a name, but after a couple of pounding heartbeats there was more. Emotions became attached to the name, faint at first and then gradually strengthening. Hunger, longing, a desire to keep her safe.

Safe. He had to fight back. If Hollings won this battle, Celinda would be in mortal danger.

The silent, screaming waves of energy continued to cascade against his senses, but they began to splinter and fall apart when they crashed against the name Celinda. Keeping her safe was more important than his own life.

The tide of energy ceased as abruptly as it had begun.

“No,” Hollings screamed. “It’s impossible.”

Davis could breathe once more. His psi senses rebounded.

He saw that Hollings was moving again, leaning down to reach into a small cave. When he straightened, Davis saw a mag-rez gun in his hand.

“You’re crazy,” Davis said. “You can’t use that thing down here.”

Hollings was beyond reason. He aimed the mag-rez at Davis.

Davis reacted instinctively. He pulled silver, went invisible, and dove for the ground.

Hollings’s eyes widened in horror. “Where are you? Where did you go? You can’t hide from me.”

He started firing. The first two shots went wild. The third time he rezzed the trigger, the mag-rez exploded in his hand.

By the time Davis reached him, he was dead.