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The lion had killed him. From the position of the body and the fright etched
into the dead face, he could picture the performer's terror-stricken flight
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across the main ring, the big cat in pursuit. The ending, he thought
sardonically, had been pure justice.
But who had loosed the lion?
The boy, of course. He'd glimpsed him fleeing from the scene. More to the
point, why had he loosed it? To protect himself from The Strangler; there was
no other answer. Conscious of a mounting excitement, he deliberately
backtracked to fit the pieces together.
The boy had the stone! He felt more certain of that than ever. Somehow
Clement had managed to slip it to him before his own death at Gurdon's hands.
That tied in with Clement's flight into the Ullan Hills -- the boy's
appearance, shortly afterward, from those same hills. Clement had given him
the stone!
Faust closed his eyes, concentrating against his mounting agitation. His mind
reeled. Jedro had the stone...had the power...was the one to whom the stone
would respond. It had to be that way. Destiny had jabbed a finger at the boy;
now destiny had brought the boy to him.
His head jerked up.
Had The Strangler been after the stone? The thought jolted him. That would
explain the performer's presence in the big tent, the boy's desperation in
loosing the lion. He contemplated his reasoning nervously. The assumption that
The Strangler had known of the stone held frightening implications that he
couldn't afford to disregard.
The implications were obvious. The Strangler was too stupid to have acted on
his own, hence he'd been sent by someone else; ergo, that someone knew of the
stone. Barracuda? The Human Pincushion? The two had been closest to him. He
clenched his fists until his nails bit into his palms.
Aside from Gurdon, how many people knew of the stone? He had assumed that
Clement had been alone in the knowledge, but no longer. The Strangler's death
had shattered that belief. He returned his thoughts to The Tattooed Man.
Although Gurdon knew of the stone, he had no knowledge of its real potential.
Neither would he have mentioned it; he was too closemouthed for that. Yet
someone knew!
The realization brought a quiet desperation. Immortality! He wouldn't be
cheated of that. He'd all but had the stone once, then had allowed Clement to
escape. He didn't intend to make the same mistake twice. Yet if others were
after the stone, time was precious. He had to move fast, yet carefully, and
totally without mistake. First he had to grab the boy.
The boy was the key; of that he had no doubt. Suddenly everything was drawing
together. Far-flung happenings in time and space were rushing into focus. The
time for waking Holton Lee was now; Jasper Gollard had admitted that. And the
person who had the power to make the stone respond, tell where
Holton Lee was hiding, had been spirited away to Doorn, his mind blanked -- it
all tied in with what he knew of the boy. A boy who could predict storms, who
made friends with savage lions! An orphan without a past! Now he had, or
almost had, both boy and stone. Immortality awaited but his grasp.
What power had the boy? He mulled the question uneasily. The power to make the
stone respond. Gollard's words! But Gollard also had said that the person with
the power was a sensitive. A telepath? Jasper Gollard hadn't known. Of one
thing Faust felt certain: there was no power of the mind that couldn't be
controlled through hypnosis. He'd proved that with Jasper Gollard, with
Clement. The greater the talent, the more he could make it work for him.
The boy would discover that soon enough. So would Holton Lee.
Immortality! To live forever, to stride down through the ages, laughing at the
impermanency of life around him; to watch it unfold, bloom, and wither while
he himself remained strong and virile -- he gloated at the prospect.
Immortality! He could sense its presence, an aura that filled the air around
him. Of all imaginable gifts, that was the greatest, for then a man could vie
with the gods. He forced his mind back to the tasks at hand. He had to play it
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step by step, with no room for error. He had to concentrate on each move,
relegate everything else to the shadowy future. Find the boy, get the stone,
make the boy talk; that was the immediate now. Later he would find
Holton Lee, take hypnotic command of his mind, strip him of his secret -- rid
the universe of him so that the secret would remain his alone. Immortality!
But first he had to find the boy.
"Get Gurdon," he barked to one of the roustabouts. Casting a contemptuous
glance at The Strangler's torn body, he returned to his trailer to lay his
plans.
The Tattooed Man was not long in appearing.
"Where's the boy?" demanded Faust.
Gurdon shrugged.
"He has the stone; Clement slipped it to him. I want it now! Both the boy and
the stone."
Gurdon's dark eyes remained expressionless.
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