“Scop. They put me on Scop and I slipped everything.”
Teucer groaned. “Come on. Yes, there’s a back way. Hurry, we’ve got to get somewhere we can talk.” He sped toward the rear of the house, evidently assuming Ronny was immediately behind.
But there was something about this Ronny Bronston didn’t like. He looked down at the unconscious boy. He bent over him and began to search his belt wallet, finding precious little except an hours card. He thought about it, and pocketed the plastic. The other’s name was Tanais, and he belonged to the Terpsichore genos. All of which told Ronny nothing. Wasn’t Terpsichore the goddess of song, or the dance or something?
There was a banging at the front door.
They’d come at last. Ronny came hurriedly erect. As he started for the door, he looked down at the boy. He shook his head. Even had there been reason, he wasn’t up to escaping burdened with the kid. And there was no reason.
He turned and hurried after Teucer, and even as he ran he realized that something had been wrong about Teucer. He had been more collected, less emotional and shrill than the night before. In view of the circumstances, it would have been more reasonable had it been the other way.
He was about to leave the patio garden through the exit which Teucer had taken when he heard the front door bang open. A voice yelled, “Hey! Wait? Holy Jumping Zen, what goes on here?”
It was a male voice.
Ronny came to a halt and turned. It was the burly Zeke, rumbling in, bear-like, a large handgun in one overgrown paw.
Zeke took him in, snorted, and disappeared from sight into the room where Teucer had been bound. Ronny returned, shooting a glance at the door to the street. Zeke had slammed it shut upon his entrance, and thrown a bar.
The Sons of Liberty leader was staring at the still unconscious boy and at the ropes which had once held Teucer.
“Zen,” he groaned. “The funker escaped.” He bent over the youngster. “Out cold!”
Ronny was in the doorway, his face in puzzlement. “I don’t understand.”
“When did you get here?”
“A few minutes ago.” He shook his head. There was still nausea in his stomach and his muscles were like water, particularly after the exertion of the brief struggle. “Teucer was tied up.”
“Tied up, is right?” The funker is a traitor, a spy! What happened? What happened to Tanais, here?”
The effects of the Come-Along were evidently completely gone but the Scop was still on him. Ronny couldn’t have lied had he wished. He said, “The door was open. I came in to warn you. Teucer was tied up. The boy, here, jumped on my back. I knocked him out before I realized he was just a kid. Teucer told me some cock-and-bull story, evidently, and took off through the back.”
Zeke was on one knee at the side of Tanais, his gun at the half-ready, as though not knowing what to expect. He said, “Tanais came from Lybia a few days ago as an exchange student. This morning he contacted us. Teucer had told us that was where he was from and we accepted him. But we know Tanais is from Lybia, his father is top man in the organization there and when he didn’t recognize Teucer it was obvious we had a spy from the Hippolyte in our ranks. I went to check with Damon…”
But Ronny was shaking his head. “Teucer’s no spy from the Hippolyte.”
Zeke glared at him, coming to his feet. “What are you talking about? Of course he’s a spy.”
“No. I came to warn you, and we’d better get out of here quickly. The Hippolyte’s people had me put under Scop this morning. I spilled practically everything I knew about my mission, those who sent me, and the Sons of Liberty and their program.”
“What!”
Ronny held up a hand. “But the thing is, they had never heard of your organization before. So they could hardly have sent Teucer in as a spy.”
“They were lying!”
Ronny shook his head. “No they weren’t. They were flabbergasted when the drug brought the fact from me that you existed.”
Zeke was breathing deeply. “You gave them this address, you flat?”
Ronny said evenly, “I was under Scop. I think I still am, at least partially.”
Zeke’s small eyes narrowed further. “Oh, you are, eh? Listen, is the Octagon going to send help to us?”
“I dont know,” Ronny said. He tried to keep control of himself but his voice was slipping into the Zombie-inflection.
“Is it most likely they will?”
“Yes.”
“How soon?”
“Probably as soon as a report from me gets back.”
“How were you to transmit your report?”
“Through my Section G communicator.”
“Have you sent any report at all, thus far?”
“No.” Ronny Bronston could feel the blisters of cold sweat on his face as he tried to fight the truth serum, but it was useless. He could have tried rushing the other, but Zeke was armed and strong, and the Section G operative was still not fully recovered from his bout with his alcohol antidote.
“Why not?” Zeke pressed.
“My communicator was broken, when someone searched my room.”
Zeke thought about it for a moment, even as he muttered, “I got to get out of here.” He said, “When you report, who is it to?”
“Sid Jakes.”
Zeke’s face worked in thought, and his breathing came deeper. He nudged the boy at his feet with a toe and the other stirred. “Wake up, damn it!”
He looked back at Ronny again, something obviously suddenly occuring to him. “Holy Zen! they had you. How’d you get away?”
“I was in a hospital. They had taken me there to question me. After half an hour, they decided it was necessary to inform the Hippolyte of what they’d learned. So they left me under guard in a room. The guards stood outside. However, there was another door. A girl named Minythyia came through it.”
“Minythyia! Are you sure of that name?”
“Yes. She came out to the Schirra with the customs officials launch as one of the assistants. Later, she attempted to…select me as one of her husbands.”
“Minythyia!”
“Yes,” Ronny said, still zombie-like.
“All right, what happened?”
“She got me out of the hospital and drove me to the apartment of a friend. Then she left me there, under orders not to leave. She went to secure an alibi.”
“Do you know who Minythyia is?”
“She is one of the warriors who—”
“Do you know who else she is?”
“No.”
“She’s the drivel-happy daughter of the Hippolyte, you cloddy!”
There were sounds from the street. Zeke shot his eyes in that direction, then down at the boy who was now beginning to come to his feet.
“Get moving, Tanais. There’s a back way out.”
Tanais began stumbling toward the back. There was a pounding at the front door, as though of more than one fist.
Zeke took after the boy, his eyes looking over his shoulder, glowering desperately at the source of the noise.
Ronny began to follow.
Thick lips pulled back over the revolutionist’s stained teeth. The shooter came up. “You stay here, my stute friend. You stay here.”
Ronny came to a halt, staring. He motioned with his head. “But that’ll be the Hippolyte’s police.”
Zeke was at the back door through which Teucer had disappeared some ten minutes before. They could hear a splintering sound from the front.
Zeke’s gun came up slowly, his teeth were still bared. He said, snarl in his voice, “That’s right. We couldn’t let you fall into their hands again, could we, fella?”
Ronny spun in desperation, the charge from the other’s gun missing him infinitesimally, crumbling the stone of the doorway in which he had been standing.
He was out of range of the other’s fire, back again in the room where he had found Teucer. Zeke was going to have to come and get him if he wanted another shot, and Zeke d
idn’t have the time. The front door came down with a crash.
In fact, Zeke was already most likely gone. If he wasn’t then Ronny’s next move was sudden death.
Because he came charging out again, into the patio from which he had just stepped in retreat, ten seconds earlier.
His gamble had paid off. Zeke and Tanais were gone.
Ronny sped for the door through which the two Sons of Liberty had just passed. He had danger before and danger behind, and why he chose the first he had no idea.
X
Had it not been for the sounds of Zeke and his young companion before him, he probably would never have found the way of retreat. The building was a meandering one, something in the nature of a Spanish or Mexican habitation of early times. The wall on Heliopolis Street had been blank, save for the door. From the outside, there was little to indicate what lay within.
Within was surprisingly extensive. There were three small patios in all, with numerous rooms of varying size leading off. It had been a sumptuous house, in its time; now it was run down.
In a way, it was a labyrinth and a person unfamiliar with the windings of its halls and walks could have become temporarily lost.
Ronny pounded after the faint sounds of Zeke and Tanais, running as softly, himself, as he could. He didn’t know whether the girl warriors behind him had actually seen him or not. But in any case they would spread through this building in brief moments. He had to get out.
Suddenly he could hear Zeke no longer.
The other had either paused, waiting for Ronny and for another shot at him, or he had passed out of the house and made his escape.
The only alternative Ronny could accept was the latter. He continued to run in the direction he had last heard the Sons of Liberty head who had so strangely and murderously turned on him. He came abruptly to a narrow door and instinctively knew that beyond lay the street. In fact, he could hear the sounds of a hovercar lifting and then zooming ahead. Ronny prayed to whatever gods might be listening that it was Zeke making his getaway. He grabbed the door latch and flung it open, half expecting a blast from the big man’s shooter.
There was no blast. There was no sign of Zeke or Tanais in the alleyway beyond. They had already made good their escape.
He wished that he had time to think about Teucer and Minythyia, and about Zeke, for that matter. Why in the name of the Holy Ultimate had the man tried to finish Ronny off?
He sped down the alley, hoping he was taking a direction that would place him as far as possible from the Amazons behind in as short a period of time.
He came out on a side-street, puffing, and brought on himself the stares of various pedestrians in the vicinity.
He slowed down to a walk, grinning inanely, as though ashamed of being caught running.
“Beautiful day, eh?” he said to the world in general.
Somebody snorted. All turned to look away from him.
He walked as rapidly as was compatible with his desire to remain inconspicuous. His sickness had given way now to more simple symptoms of hangover. He had a crushing headache and was still up to less than his full strength, but at least he felt his mind was clear.
As he walked, he tried to think it out.
Most things he could think of added up to very little sense. First, why wasn’t this whole” area saturated with Hippolyte’s police, warriors, guards—call them what you would? He had been on various police-state planets during his years with Section G. If there was one thing they had in common, it was a plentitude of armed, competent secret police. He couldn’t imagine that house on Heliopolis Street not having been overrun with Hippolyte’s people within a matter of a quarter hour after he had revealed the situation of the underground hideaway.
And Zeke! Why had the revolutionary attempted to kill him? Was Zeke, rather than Teucer, the traitor to the Sons of Liberty? Had Teucer found out something about the big man? Why had Zeke been, well, indignant, at the suggestion that the Hippolyte’s people had never heard of the underground?
And Minythyia! How could it possibly make sense that the daughter of the Hippolyte was serving as an ordinary police private, or whatever she was? How could such people as the major and Clete treat her, address her, as though she was a nobody? The splendor of the throne room of Hippolyte’s palace gave lie to any theory that there was a comradeship between these women warriors that would allow the daughter of the supreme ruler to be treated as an equal by low ranking officials.
And Teucer! How did Teucer fit into it all? What was it the other was so anxious to talk over with him! And if he wasn’t a refugee from Lybia, what was he?
He called it all quits for the time and looked about. He was at a large square. Before him was a park with four colossal statues dominating its center. He concentrated, in spite of the headache, recalling the maps supplied by Sarpedon in the Octagon. The maps of Themiscyra.
Yes, he thought he knew where he was. The river, the Thermodon, would be over that way about four blocks. In that direction, to his right, was the sanctuary. Perhaps a mile away. He dare not go there. If anything seemed likely at all, it was that the Amazon police were going through his things with fine-toothed combs. He wondered with wry humor what poor Podner Bates was making of it all. He hoped the little man wasn’t in trouble for befriending Ronny Bronston.
The police were after him, his only contact with the Sons of Liberty, Zeke, had tried to kill him. He had no way of communicating with his superiors, nowhere to go and no funds…
Wait a minute. There were no funds, here on Amazonia.
He stuck a hand into the belt pouch of his outfit and fished forth the plastic card he had taken from Tanais when he had searched the boy there on the floor.
He stopped long enough to scrutinize the thing more carefully than he had before. It revealed little. His name and genos name. His address and, yes, the fact that he was a student. Thank the Holy Ultimate that students were paid to attend school in this fantastic economy. Tanais would have a supply of hours to his credit. The card, without doubt was valid.
If it wasn’t, he, Ronny Bronston, would soon find out.
In his walking, he had passed several of what he assumed were taxi. stands. Empty hovercars waiting for fares. There was a stand located alongside the park.
Taking his chances, he opened the door of a cab and slid inside, behind the driver’s joystick. He looked over the controls, noted the fare box screen and figured out its workings. He had driven twice with the major in limousines, once with Minythyia in a sports vehicle. Beyond that, he had driven hovercars, of slightly different design, on a dozen different worlds. On most, the wheel was used, but he had operated cars directed by sticks before. If anything, they provided a more delicate control.
He began experimenting. You dropped this lever. No, first you dropped the brake. Then you lifted clear of the street with this.
A voice said, “You have forgotten to put your hours card on the screen, Madam.”
He jerked his head around, inadvertently.
The voice was some sort of built-in recording. He brought his purloined card out and put it on the screen, and started all over again.
He was going to have to operate it manually. He had no idea of how to set the coordinates on the auto controls. He would have had to have a more complete knowledge of the city for that.
He got under way without much difficulty and concentrated on his destination. He was going to have to experiment, he wasn’t quite sure of the location.
However, he made it with little difficulty, cruising up and down the streets until he spotted the place. There were hovercars before it, but none that looked particularly as though they were police or military.
He stopped, removed the stolen hours card from the screen and climbed from the vehicle, half expecting it to say something further. It didn’t, and the moment he was out, took off into the traffic, evidently heading for some taxi park. He looked after it. Give credit where due. It was an efficiently handled service.
He looked up at the building. A fairly large number of persons were coming and going through the elaborate entrance. Most of them were women, but there were a few males. He continued to have difficulty telling them apart. Civilian clothes were all but identical. This was a continuing surprise. His first impression, picked up on the ship, and later in his audience with the Hippolyte, was that practically all women wore the armor-like uniform of the Amazon warrior. But here there were no such outfits in sight.
It was a minor puzzle, and he had major ones to solve. He mounted the steps and entered the building. Now his problem had only begun. He was afraid to ask questions. Just as surely as he did, he would stand out like a walrus in a goldfish bowl.
He doubted that his destination was on the first floor, although it might have been. He mounted, instead, to the second, and prowled up and down, hopefully.
Ronny Bronston’s luck continued to hold. There were name plates on the doors. He found what he was looking for twenty minutes later on the third floor: Patricia O’Gara.
There was a door eye and he activated it.
In less than a minute the door opened and she was there, smiling at him.
This was the crux, now. If she showed any indication that she was aware of the morning’s developments, he was going to have to overpower her. She said “Why, Guy! Guy Thomas!”
He grinned at her. “Can I come in?”
She stepped back. “Of course. So you managed to land all right. How in the name of Artimis did you know where I was?”
“Minythyia pointed the building out.” The questions didn’t bother him. At long last the Scop had worn off.
He followed her into a small living room. Evidently, she had been assigned a fairly comfortable apartment by the powers that be. She had been on the planet a couple of days before he landed.
“Minythyia?” she said, even while gesturing toward a seat for him. “I’ll bet this will come as a surprise to you. Do you know who that madcap Mynythyia is?”
“You mean the daughter of the Hippolyte?” He sank into the chair with relief. “Ummm, somebody mentioned it. Imagine her acting as a lowly customs officer.”
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