Kester's face seemed strained. "Yes. I—I think so."
"Then why didn't you report it? I can hear the damn thing way over here!"
"I—I was going to," Kester said. "I wanted to make sure."
"Make sure! How sure do you have to be? Now listen. You stay by your blaster and keep your eyes and your ears open. I'm coming over to see if I can locate the 'copter. If I do locate it I'll throw a flare under it, and if they try to rise, you burn them. If they don't try to rise and we can take them alive, so much the better. I'd like to see a real live ghoul. But otherwise, you burn them! If we lose another car-corpse, we'll all be out on our ears."
"All right," Kester said. The screen went blank.
Descending the tower ladder, I wondered what kind of a guard detail I had. Last night, Betz's negligence had cost me a Cadillac. Tonight, Kester's negligence had very nearly cost me another—and might yet, if I wasn't careful.
I couldn't understand it. They were both newly-married men (Kester had applied for a wife the same day Betz had) and, since women were forbidden to work after marrying, both of them certainly needed the better wages Cadillac paid. Why should they deliberately jeopardize their status?
Maybe Betz really hadn't seen or heard anything until it was too late. Maybe Kester really hadn't been sure that the sound he was hearing was the turning of a borer.
But I was sure, and the closer I got to Tower 11, the surer I became. I timed my approach with the swath of the searchlight, made certain there was plenty of concealment available whenever it passed my way. That wasn't hard to do, with all the lombardies, the arborvitae, the hills, dales and gardens that infested the place. But for once the ancient automakers' passion for landscaping was benefitting me instead of the ghouls.
Tower 11 was a tripodal skeleton stabbing into the cadaverous face of the rising moon. It loomed higher and higher above me as I neared the source of the sound. I swore silently at Kester. He was either stone deaf and blind as a bat, or a deliberate traitor to the Cadillac cause. The exhuming was taking place practically under his nose.