by Ben Bova
Kori looked at Lou and nodded. Then he stepped out and walked straight up toward the guard.
“Say there,” he called out, “can you help me? I’m trying to get into my lab here… there’s some work I have to do___”
The guard was instantly alert. “All buildings locked. No one can enter until morning.”
“Yes, I know but…” That’s all Lou heard. He ducked around the back of the building and circled it, coming up behind the guard. He could see Kori talking intently to the guard, and the youngster resting his right hand lightly on the butt of the pistol. They were standing about ten meters from the corner of the building where Lou crouched, with the guard’s back to him. Across the lighted space between the buildings, Lou could see the car they wanted.
Ten meters. Quickly and quietly, Lou slipped of his sandals, then tried to tiptoe and hurry at the same time. The sound of his bare feet on the gravel seemed deafening. The guard started to turn around.
Lou covered the last few meters with a flying leap and pinned the guard’s arms to his sides while Kori clouted him across the windpipe. He gagged and went down, thrashing, with Lou on top of him. Kori calmly leaned over, pushed Lou’s face out of the way, and chopped hard at the back of the guard’s neck. He went limp.
Lou got to his feet, sweating, panting. “Is he dead?”
“I don't know” Kori said. He went to the lab door and punched the buttons of the combination lock. The door opened and the lights went on automatically.
“See?” said Kori smiling, “No alarms. I rigged them this afternoon, at the same time that I changed the lock’s combination. There’s some benefit to being a physicist after all.”
Lou dragged the guard inside and stuffed him in a cabinet, then locked it. Meanwhile, Kori filled a tool kit with the equipment he wanted.
Wordlessly, they left the lab and re-locked the door. Then they went to the car.
“Are you sure you can handle everything by yourself?” Lou asked as Kori slid the tool kit onto the back seat.
“If you can keep them busy on the other end of the island,” Kori said. He pulled the guard’s pistol out of his belt. “Here. I’ll get another one from the guard at the storage caves. Do you know how to use it?”
“I think so….”
“It’s simple. Just release this catch here and it’s ready to fire. Pull the trigger and it goes off. It should have at least a couple dozen charges in it. Laser pulse does as much damage as an explosive bullet… like hitting something with an ultrasonic hammer.”
Lou nodded and took the gun. It felt heavy in his hand.
“Very good,” Kori said. “I’ll wait here until you start making noise down by the harbor.”
“Right.” Lou tucked the gun into his waistband, then saw Kori extend his hand. He took it and said, “Good luck.”
Kori grinned. “See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” If we’re both alive tomorrow.
Lou hurried through the star-lit night down toward the harbor. The road passed Marcus’ house, where the only other car on the island was parked. Lou looked around, saw no one, and then slid in behind the wheel and released the brake. The car started to roll down the slight incline and into the worn gulley of the-road.
Suddenly there were footsteps behind him and a man calling, “Wei! Li tsai iso sheng mo?”
Lou let the car glide to a stop, slid out, and crouched down behind the car. A light came on at the front of the house. Two guards were standing in front of the place, staring at the car. Lou pulled the gun out and set the safety release.
The guards didn’t seem to know he was there. They were walking slowly toward the car. Lou stood straight up and fired over the car. The gun went crack .‘crack.‘as hundreds of joules of electrical energy were suddenly charged to invisible pulses of infrared laser light. The first guard was bowled over backward, as if hit in the chest by a giant’s fist. The second spun and sprawled on his face. Neither of them moved once they hit the ground.
His hands shaking, Lou set the safety again and tucked the gun back into his waistband. Then he forced himself to go over to the bodies and take their guns. They’re still breathing. He felt a little better as he went back to the car and tossed their guns onto the front seat.
Five past midnight. Running late. He got in behind the wheel again. He turned on the car’s headlights and saw the road running down toward the harbor. Time for Kori’s diversion. With a deep breath, Lou turned the starter key. The turbine whined to life. Lou pressed the throttle pedal firmly down to the floor. The engine coughed, then roared. Lights went on inside the house.
He raced the engine once again, then put the car in gear and roared off down the road. The shrubs and trees by the roadside blurred by; the wind tore at his face as he plunged down the twisting road toward the harbor. Lights were going on down there, too, where the guards’ living quarters were.
He came screeching out on the flat, tore into the harbor area, and pulled the car to a screaming, tire-burning, skidding stop at the foot,of the lone dock. There was a small boat tied up at the end of it. The game was going to be to make it look as if he wanted to get off the island on that boat.
Men were piling out of several buildings in the darkness, shouting in languages Lou didn’t understand. He went to the back of the car, lifted the engine hood and groped for the fuel feed line. He ripped it out and felt a spurt of fuel slick his fingers. Then he went back to the front seat, grabbed the two extra guns, and fired several shots into the engine compartment, backpedal-ing onto the dock as he did so. The third shot did it; the car erupted in flames.
Lou raced down the dock, the burning car between him and anyone who wanted to come and get him. There were a few crates piled on one side of the wooden dock, and Lou ducked behind them. In front of him was the flaming turbowagon; through the blurring heat waves of its fire he could see men running around the dockside area, some of them brandishing guns, all looking red and lurid in the light of the fire. Behind him was the open harbor, and the small boat tied up at the end of the dock.
But somebody had already thought about the boat. Lou heard a funny crunching sound, and then the crash of breaking glass. Looking over his shoulder, he saw a chunk of the boat’s gunwale poof into splinters and vapor. Laser rifle! They’re breaking up the boat to keep me from using it. Maybe they think I’m on board it already.
Then another thought: When they find out I’m where I really am, they’ll start blasting those rifles at me!
Lou froze into a motionless, thoroughly frightened little knot of humanity, crouched behind the packing crates, trying to look totally invisible or at least as small and unnoticeable as possible. Long minutes ticked by. The fire in the car died down, the boat slid over on its side, gurgling obscenely.
Things up on dockside had quieted down. It was harder to see now, but there must have been dozens of guards milling around during the height of the blaze. Lou knew he was trapped and he was going to die. But not just yet. He realized that he had picked up a splinter in his left foot and it hurt. And his jaws ached from being clenched. He wondered how Kori was doing.
Maybe I ought to make some more noise or something, he thought. On the other hand, maybe the guards thought he had been aboard the boat and was now drowned. If I let them know I’m here, I’m just inviting them to shoot me.
He shook his head. They’re going to find you sooner or later, hero. Right now your job is to make enough noise to distract them from Kori.
Squinting out into the darkness, he could barely make out a row of what looked like fuel drums lined up neatly on the shore, near the foot of the dock. A dozen drums. Maybe fifty meters away. An easy target.
It took him five shots before one of the drums burst into flame. In an instant they all went up.
Now the shouting and running began all over again. Nobody was shooting at him, either. They were all running toward the fire or away from it. Lou watched the guards. They were good, no question of it. After the first momentary shock a
nd surprise, they fought the raging fire with hand extinguishers, blankets, anything they could find. Finally, somebody trundled up with a portable foam generator and they started smothering the blaze with billowing white foam. But it took time, lots of time.
The fire was smoldering and smoking when Lou heard:
“Christopher! I know you’re out there on the dock. Give yourself up, you can’t get away.” Marcus' voice.
Lou almost laughed. Marcus didn’t sound angry or frightened or even very upset. He was talking as calmly as the first day they’d met. That meant that he didn’t realize what Kori was up to, or that Bonnie was hidden.
Or, Lou heard himself counter, it could mean that he’s got Kori and Bonnie and the whole game’s lost.
“Christopher, I don’t want to have you killed. Come out now and stop this nonsense.”
Like a schoolteacher scolding a kid, Lou thought.
“You can’t get away, Christopher. We know you’re sitting behind those packing crates. We…” Suddenly his voice cut off.
Lou peeked out from behind the crates. Marcus was listening to a guard who was gesturing and pointing up the road, toward the other end of the island.
“So the three of you are in on this together!” Marcus’ voice sounded a little edgier now. “All right, we’ll just find the other two and bring them out here. You can watch and see what happens to them.”
“Marcus!” Lou called out.
Everyone at dockside froze. In the back of his mind, Lou
realized that it was nearly dawn. There was enough gray light to see the whole dockside area now.
“Marcus, did you ever stop to think of what a good target you make?”
Marcus jerked a step backward.
“No, don’t move!” Lou yelled. “Don’t any of you move. If anybody twitches, you’ll get it, Marcus. I mean it!”
Marcus stood frozen at dockside. He was out in the open, the nearest guard a meter or so away, the nearest cover the burned-out hulk of the car, at least ten meters away. Lou prayed that none of them knew how many shots it would take him to hit anything at this distance.
“Christopher, you can’t get away with this.”
Lou grinned. “Can’t I?”
As if in answer, the packing crate in front of him exploded in a deafening blast and a shower of splinters. Lou felt himself soaring, slow motion, tumbling off the dock, seeing the green land swing wildly and the greener water rushing up toward him. As he hit the water and lost consciousness, his last thought was that some rifleman had missed his head by just about a centimeter.
(18)
The pain woke him up. It would have been pleasant to stay asleep, unconscious, oblivious to everything. But he hurt everywhere, like knives were being twisted under his skin.
His eyes were gummy when he tried to open them. Everything was blurred, out of focus. There was a gray expanse of ceiling over his head. And faces. He tried to raise his head, but somebody’s hand pushed him back onto the pillow.
Turning his head slightly, he could make out a window off to his right. It was bright, bright enough to make him shut his eyes.
What time is it? flashed through his mind. He started to speak, but all he heard was a thick, scratchy-throated groan.
“He’s conscious,” said a voice.
Marcus’ face slid into view. Still calm. But was that perspiration beading his brow?
“That was a foolish bit of nonsense,” Marcus said without rancor “What have you done with the girl? And where’s Dr. Kori?”
Lou found the strength to shake his head.
“It’s a small island, Christopher. We’ll find them sooner or later.”
“Not before…,” he croaked.
“Before what?” Marcus asked.
“Nothing.”
Marcus leaned closer. “We can find out. You can’t keep any secrets from us.”
“Go ahead and torture me… it won’t…”
“Don’t be an ass,” Marcus said. “There are drugs that will make you do anything.”
“No…”
Somewhere beyond Lou’s vision a door opened and footsteps clicked quickly toward his bed. A voice muttered something, too low for Lou to hear.
“What?” Marcus snapped. “Why wasn’t I told sooner? When did…”
Marcus’ face slid into view again. It was red now. With anger. Or fear? Lou smiled.
“Where’s Dr. Kori? What’s he doing with a bomb?”
“Planting it in your lunch.”
Lou saw Marcus’ hand blurring toward him but couldn’t move out of the way. It stung and snapped his head to one side. He tasted blood in his mouth.
“Get him talking. And quickly,” Marcus ordered.
Someone grabbed at his arm. It flamed agony. Lou saw it was red and sore with thousands of splinters from the packing case that had exploded in front of him. An expressionless Chinese doctor took his arm from the guard, held it gently, swabbed a relatively undamaged spot on the underside of the arm, and then pressed a pneumatic syringe into the area. He put Lou’s arm back down on the bed carefully, then looked at his wristwatch.
“The reaction should take a few minutes,” the doctor said to Marcus.
Marcus paced the room nervously. The doctor stood by the bed, patiently watching Lou. What time is it? Lou wondered. How much time does Kori need?
Somebody giggled. Lou was startled to realize it was he himself.
The doctor turned toward Marcus. “He should be ready now.”
Marcus came to the bed and leaned over Lou. “All right now, Christopher. Where is Dr. Kori, and what’s he doing with the bomb he stole?”
“Playing in the sand,” Lou said, laughing. It was funny, everything was so funny. Marcus’ face, the thought of Kori digging sand castles with a nuclear bomb tucked under his arm. The whole thing was uproariously funny.
“Listen to me!” Marcus shouted, his face red and sweaty. “Quickly, before…”
The flash of light was bright enough to feel on your skin. For an instant everything stopped, etched in the pitiless white light. No sound, no voices, no movement. Then the bed lifted, the window blew in with a shower of glass, a woman screamed, and a roar of ten thousand demons overpowered every other sensation.
Somebody fell across Lou’s bed. The roardied away, leaving his ears aching. People started to move again through a dusty plaster haze, crunching glass underfoot. Marcus staggered up from the bed.
Lou heard somebody say in an awed voice, “Look at that… a real mushroom cloud, just like in the history books.”
Then Lou heard his own laughter. He couldn’t see Marcus, but he knew he was still there.
“You’ve lost, Marcus. You might as well admit it. There’ll be a government inspection team here in a matter of hours. Followed by troops, if you want to fight. It’s all over. You’ve lost.”
“I can still kill you! And the girl!”
Lou was laughing uncontrollably now. The drug, he knew in the back of his mind. But there was nothing he could do to stop himself. “Sure, kill me. Kill everybody. That’s going to help you a lot. An enormous lot.”
He laughed until he passed out again.
It was pleasant to be unconscious. Or am I dead? But the thought brought no fear. He was floating in darkness, without pain, without anxiety, just floating in soft warm darkness. Then, after a long, long while, the darkness began to turn a little gray. It brightened slowly, like a midnight reluctantly giving way to dawn.
Bonnie’s face appeared in the grayness. There were tears in her eyes, on her cheeks. “Oh, Lou …”
He wanted to say something, to touch her, to make her stop crying. But he couldn’t move. It was as if he had no body. Then her face faded away and the darkness returned.’
He heard other voices in the grayness, and once in a while the black turned gray again and he could see strange faces peering at him. He would try to talk, try to signal to them, but always the darkness closed in again.
Then, abruptly, h
e opened his eyes and everything was in sharp focus. He was lying in a hospital bed. The walls of his room were a pastel blue, the ceiling clean white. There were viewscreens and camera eyes in the ceiling. Lou found that he could turn his head. It hurt, but he could do it. There was a window at his left. He couldn’t see out of it at this angle, but sunshine was pouring in. A night table was next to his bed, a rolling tray crammed with plastic pill bottles and syringes and other medical whatnots. A door, closed. A single plastic sling chair standing beside it.
He tried sitting up, and the bed followed his motion with an almost inaudible hum from an electric motor. Leaning back in a half-sitting position, he suddenly felt woozy.
