Death is Forever

had a knack for double and triple meanings. Look at the title. It can be read as a comment on the poetry, as a comment on how diamonds are formed, and as a comment on diamonds themselves. Not bad. Not pretty, mind you, but not stupid.”
    Cole waited, watching her long, slender fingers tracing over the poetry. But she wasn’t reading. Her eyes were unfocused. He sensed the same intense concentration in her that she normally reserved for photography—or making love.
    “Are you sure there aren’t any caves on the station or the mineral claims?” she asked finally.
    “None that I know of.”
    She sighed. “Well, it was a nice idea.”
    “What was?”
    “If there were caves or passages through the dead sea’s bones, and if you had Abe’s warped view of life, you might see a man’s penetration of a cave in sexual terms. As for seeing the cave in feminine terms, Mother Earth is a common metaphor.”
    Cole shot her a surprised look.
    “I was an English major in college,” she said. “Words were my passion. Then I discovered photography. Anyway, Abe was supposed to be some kind of literary scholar, wasn’t he?”
    “A good one, when he was sober. He used to recite Milton and Pope to me while we drank.”
    “Poor baby.”
    “Would you believe I liked it? He had an amazing voice.”
    Erin looked at Cole and realized that she did believe it. He was a man of unpredictable interests.
    “But there’s a problem with your interpretation of the poetry,” he continued. “Several, actually.”
    “What?”
    “No caves.”
    “We just have to find one.”
    “Right,” he said dryly. “That leaves Abe.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “‘Crazy bloke/Drank holy’ pretty well describes him.”
    “Wasn’t he ever sober?”
    “Yes. That’s what I’m worried about. Remember the last lines of the poetry in the will?”
    Erin shook her head and started searching through the papers in front of her.
    “Don’t bother,” he said. “‘Goodbye, my Queen of Lies./And I am the King.’ This whole thing could be Abe’s gigantic joke on the world.”
    “But the diamonds are real.”
    “As real as death. ‘Secrets blacker than death/And truth it’s death to speak./But I will speak to you…child of rue.’” Cole’s mouth turned down. “It’s you he’s speaking to, Erin. ‘Child of deceit/Cleave unto me./My grave, my bones,/Hear them moan.’ It’s you he’s offering death.”
    “You should have been an English major. You’re reading more into the lines than I am.” She looked at the watch on his wrist. “How much time before we go prospecting again?”
    There was an electric silence before Cole accepted the change of subject. “I’ll go run up the chopper.”
    He turned and went toward the helicopter without another word about death and poetry.

34
Abe’s station
    Cole checked out the helicopter and started it up. The engine ripped to life and settled down to running steadily. He waited, listening to the engine.
    It missed a beat, picked up again.
    He checked the gauges. Nothing unusual. He ran the revs up and down and waited.
    Again, the engine missed a beat, then resumed smoothly.
    He sat and listened to the engine’s beat—and the times when it missed. After several minutes he shut down the helicopter and jumped out.
    Erin, who was working on her second cup of coffee, looked up from the photos and poetry in time to see Cole open a panel on the chopper and probe the engine’s innards.
    It wasn’t long before he was coming toward her, holding a round metal cylinder in one big hand. She could tell by his walk and the line of his shoulders that he was angry.
    “This shoots one day all to hell, and probably two,” he said to Erin, holding up the cylinder.
    He looked at the sky, hazed by heat. In a few areas clouds were already forming. It was early for the wet to settle in, but the signs were there. Rain could come at any time, shutting down the possibility of finding Crazy Abe’s mine until the dry returned.
    “Lai,” he snarled.
    She appeared in response to his summons with a speed that told Erin the Chinese woman had been standing just inside the door, waiting or listening or both.
    And Cole had known it.
    “Yes?” Lai asked, looking only at him.
    “Tell Wing to send down three complete sets of fuel filters for the helicopter. I’ll keep the spares with me at all times.”
    Lai nodded and added a phrase in Chinese.
    “Speak English,” he said.
    “But you understand Chinese very