"I'm familiar with that theory of crime but I don't go along with it. I'm not convinced you can unspoil a rotten apple, and I doubt if it's worth while to try."
"No matter," said Torry grimly. "If they fail on him, they'll destroy him. Either way, it will make a better world for everyone. Probably I hate him more than you do. But I'm willing to give him this last chance if you'll let me."
Grannar laughed ironically. "Have it your way, if you can take him. It's out of my hands, actually. Though, as a cop, I'd be better satisfied if you burned him down here, I'll settle for your clinic. It's a nasty enough choice, anyhow. If you can capture or kill him, go ahead. I'll gladly resign my share of the brute to you. And you'll earn it. Do you really think you can crawl out of here and circle him?"
Torry glanced sourly at the flickering mirages. "I can try," he said slowly.
It was a mirage that saved Torry.
Going proved even rougher than he had expected. Squirming over unknown terrain is hard, even in conditions of fair visibility. On Triton, with its constantly varying light, and the ever-present confusion of mirages, it was fantastic. The cumbersome space suit was no help.
Darkness thickened around him, but the mirages grew worse, as he toiled up the slope. Loose stones rattled about him in tiny avalanches, and he went more carefully, lest they betray him to Roper. Sweat bathed him inside his insulated costume, and steam misted the helmet's face plate before he could get the thermal conditioners functioning properly. A bad foothold earned him a nasty fall, and the rough suiting and acid sweat combined to burn painful blisters on hands and knees.
In grim determination approximating madness, he plunged upward and onward. He found an eroded ravine and groped blindly along it, wondering what fearful liquids had gashed such a gully on such a nightmarish world.
Alien dusk gathered, and in the hollow of the ravine writhed coils of living light. At intervals, he avoided the hot glaring flares of radioactive hotspots. Torry followed the barren fissure, and strange sounds and fleeting light-phantoms followed him. And a river of dense, sluggish air funneled upward through the gully, whispering of ugly, forgotten events upon a forgotten world. In the uneasy sky overhead, electrical discharges wove networks of colored lightnings, which crackled and hissed as static in his earphones.