"N-never mind that, Padre. It's too late. But the ekalastron—"
"You stole it, my son? You wish to confess?"
"N-no, Padre! Not stolen. I found it. A mine—" His breath was coming in tiny, tortured gasps; he spoke more swiftly as if aware that he must tell his secret ere silence claim him. "Danger ... on Titania! The caves ... natives ... and the furnace of flame ... beware!"
"But he survived!" Chip burst in. "He got some and returned. Ask him how, Padre!"
The miner's head moved slightly as if to signify he understood the query, but even as his lips moved to frame an answer, a swift, cold shadow frosted his eyes with glaze. A moment later his breath stopped. Then it shuddered back as with a violent effort the dying man dragged himself back from death itself. A convulsion shook him. He cried weakly the single word:
"Shadrach!"
Then a blood-specked spume gushed from his lips and he lay still. "May the Lord have mercy on his soul!" begged Salvation Smith. He pushed Chip gently away, fumbled at the dead man's clothing, arranging it more neatly, then rose.
"He is gone," he told the spellbound assembly. "He is gone, bearing with him to the world beyond the secret for which you jackals strove. Thus be it, O Lord God of Hosts!"
But one man did not accept this as final. That man was Blaze Amborg who, bolstered now by his hard-bitten group of outlaws, strode forward belligerently.
"Not so fast, psalm-singer! He and I were partners. Anything he had belongs to me now!" He bent over and with a jerk disarranged the clothing Salvation had smoothed. "And by the Comet, I'm going to have it—" His hands moved with deft assurance, then with tense, hardening suspicion. "It's gone!" He wheeled to face Chip. "You stole it! You—"