Colt saw skulls crack, but nobody gave way or even fell. The dead were immortal. Then what in blazes was all this about? There was something excruciatingly wrong somewhere, and he couldn't fathom what it was.
He saw the righteous and amiable Raisuli Batar clubbing away with a table-leg; minutes later he saw the fiendish and amiable chief of the Bad men swinging about him with another.
Vaguely sensing that he ought perhaps to be on the side of the right he picked up a kettle by the handle and looked about for someone to bean with it. He saw a face that might be that of a fiend strayed from Hell, eyes rolling hideously, teeth locked and grinding with rage as its owner carved away at a small-sized somebody with a broken-bladed axe.
He was on the verge of cracking the fiend out of Hell when it considered itself temporarily at least finished with its victim and turned to Colt. "Hello, there," snapped the fiend. "Show some life, will you?"
Colt started as he saw that the fiend was Lodz, one of the Good men. Bewildered he strayed off, nearly being gouged in the face by Grandfather T'ang, who was happily swinging away with a jagged hunk of suntori bottle, not bothering to discriminate.
But how did one discriminate? It came over him very suddenly that one didn't and couldn't. The caravaneers were attacking each other. At that moment there came through a mental call from Valeska, who had just made the same discovery on her own. They joined and mounted a table, inspecting the sea of struggling human beings.
"It's all in the way you look at them," said Valeska softly.
Colt nodded. "There was only one caravan," he said in somber tones.
He experimented silently a bit, discovering that by a twiddle of the eyes he could convert Raisuli Batar into the Bad caravan leader, turban and all. And the same went for the Bad idol—a reverse twiddle converted it into the smiling, blue-eyed guardian of the Good caravan. It was like the optical illusion with the three shaded cubes that point one way or the other, depending on how you decide to see them.
"That was what Grandfather T'ang meant," said the woman. Her eyes drifted to the old man. He had just drained another bottle; with a businesslike swing against a rock he shattered the bottom into a splendid cutting-tool and set to work again.
"There's no logic to it," he Said forlornly. "None at all." Valeska smiled happily and hugged him.
Colt felt his cheek layed open.
"Bon soir. Danke-schoen. Buon giorno. Buenos dias. Bon soir. Dankeschoen. Buon—"
"You can stop that," said Colt struggling to his feet. He cracked his head against a strut, hung on dazedly. "Where's—"
He inspected the two men standing before him with healthy grins. They wore the Red Army uniform under half-buttoned flying suits. The strut that had got in his way belonged to a big, black helicopter; amidships was blazoned the crimson star of the Soviet Union.
"You're well and all that, I fawncy?" asked one of the flyers. "We spotted you and landed—bunged up your cheek a bit—Volanov heah would try to overshoot."
"I'm fine," said Colt, feeling his bandage. "Why'n hell can't you Russians learn to speak American?"
The two soldiers exchanged smiles and glances. They obviously considered Colt too quaint for words. "Pile in, old chap. We can take you as far as Bokhara—we fuel at Samarkand. I—ah—suppose you have papers?"
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Colt leaned against the strut and wearily shoved over his credentials. Everything would be all right. Chungking was in solid with the Reds at the moment. Everything would be all right. They took off.
"I fawncy," said Volanov making conversation while his partner handled the helicopter vanes, "youah glad to see the lawst of all that."
Colt looked down, remembered and wept.
"I find," I said as dryly as possible, "a certain familiarity—a nostalgic ring, as it were—toward the end of your tale." I was just drunk enough to get fancy with The Three Cornered Scar.
"You do?" he asked. He leaned forward across the table. "You do?"
"I've read widely in such matters," I hastily assured him, pouring another glass of red wine.
He grinned glumly, sipping. "If I hadn't left half my spirit with Valeska that night I was dead," he remarked conversationally, "I'd smash your face in."
"That may be," I assented gracefully.
But I should say that he drank less like half a spirit than half a dozen.
