"Simple enough. That's all he's ever peddled. Pot of gold at the end of the rainbow to tempt the greedy and unwary. And rainbows are circular, with no beginning and no end. Haven't you ever heard the term?"
"I have now. I wondered, that's all. There are mirages on Triton. He'll have plenty to sell."
Torry snorted. "I can see you've bought one."
Flasher signals on the wall began to blink rapidly.
They moved steadily onward, faster than before, into a still more shadowy region. Light itself seemed to exist only at long intervals where age-old radilumes performed a feeble service. The spongy floor of rotten bedrock was scummed over with moss to make for slippery footing. Formations of natural rock seemed like stage furniture designed by elves and gnomes, in which stone mimicked monstrosities of the vegetable world. Fat, knotted stalagmites suggested tree trunks, and the darkness overhead appeared like shadowy densities of foliage. Seepage had fretted the walls into lacy limestone traceries like a fern forest. They went on, with tense silence savage between them.
Alarm blinkers flashed light codes of rapid pursuit.
"Your people must have had much contact with the police to have worked out such a set-up," observed Torry.
Tharol Sen nodded. "We have been persecuted for centuries. Not many Earthfolk have ever been here. Nor any others but my own people."
"Yet the police seem to be finding their way."
Tharol Sen frowned. "That puzzles me," she admitted. "How could they come here at all unless someone has betrayed us?"