by Sharon
He shook his head as the bell dinged outside his lift.
Commander, old son, you're an optimist. He smiled wryly.
* * *
THEY JUST MISSED nailing her in the room. As it was, one saw her as she slid around the corner toward the service lift and set up a yell.
Miri ran. The luck was in: a cleanbot hauling a load of supplies and paper goods was just leaving the lift. She grabbed its head and threw her weight into a spin that sent it bumbling out of control and into the shins of the man in the lead; then she dove into the lift, slapped down, and leaned on it.
Down it went, obedient to unceasing imperative, and stopped with a bump that would have made her nervous, if she'd had time for luxuries.
She was out before she'd gauged her surroundings, and the lift was closed and rising before she thought to wedge the door.
Well, can't help that, she thought. Look for the other way out before the cheering section gets here.
The light was dim, but that was to be expected in a sub-basement stacked with boxes of cleaning supplies and gods-knew-what else. She was in the guts of the hyatt, the tenement within the palace. Miri took a deep breath of dank air. Almost made a body feel at home. Now, which way was out?
* * *
CHARLIE NARANSHEK SPUN on his heel at the watchpost, almost dislodging his partner of the evening, one of Mixla City's specialists.
"What the hell?"
The specialist glanced incuriously at the group of men entering the hyatt opposite. "Some more of our guys, maybe, making sure he don't break for across the street."
But Charlie had seen a face. "Wrongo, chum. Them's Juntavas."
"Yeah?" the specialist said, returning to his bored surveillance of the street. "Busy night."
* * *
THE DOOR WAS locked, a circumstance that reminded her of the punch line to a very dirty joke. Across the basement, she heard the whine of the lift, coming back down.
She considered the lock: a shaft of metal extruded from the door, sunk deep into the jamb. No fancy computer lock had been used to protect the paper goods. But it was effective, real effective.
The lift-whine was louder. Miri shifted her shoulders, elbow bumping on the obstruction of sheath and blade—
The knife was in her hand before she had fully formed the thought. Carefully, she wedged the tip where bar entered the wooden jamb, probing.
Across the cellar, the lift door opened.
* * *
THE LOBBY WAS filled with smoke; alarms began to scream and sprinklers to sprinkle. The racket reached the sharp ears of the Clutch, three floors up, and Edger so far forgot protocol as to cut short a question being posed by his brother Selector to rise and move, with haste, to the door.
"Come, my brothers! Did I not say he is great? Let us see what he has wrought in this present." So saying, he was gone, vanished into the hall.
Handler, Selector, and Sheather followed, though Selector did tarry a moment to wonder, for Sheather's benefit, at the excitability of their kinsman.
"For you would suppose," he said, "that by the time one has his twelfth shell—and is, besides, the T'carais of so mighty a Clan as our own—one would have put aside such childish hastiness and behave as an adult."
They were in the hallway proper before Sheather had framed his reply.
"Perhaps," he offered diffidently, for he was very conscious of his status as a lowly Seventh Shell, "it is that our brother, himself, is an artist."
* * *
THEY HAD SPLIT into groups and were prowling the rows of stacked goods one by one. Miri bit her lip and continued working the blade. She almost had it . . . .
With a click too loud for oversensitive ears, the bar retracted into the door. Miri was through in the next instant and turning the key on the other side, firmly engaging the lock once more.
She took a deep breath and wrinkled her nose. The ramp she stood on smelled bad, though the 'bots probably didn't mind. And by rights, she shouldn't either, because the ramp led up and that was just what the doctor ordered.
So she'd head up, preferably to the Grotto level, where there was lots of access to outside. Once out, she'd find a comm and buzz Edger, who would no doubt tell her what Tough Guy had decided she should do next.
Which did raise an interesting point: What was she going to do next?
One thing at a time, Robertson. Don't get ahead of yourself.
The smell was getting less bad—or her nose had made an adjustment of heroic proportions—and she was hearing noises from above. Lots of noises. Well, maybe somebody was having a party. The more the merrier—and the easier for her to slip through and out, unnoticed.
The ramp curved and abruptly ended at a door. She worked the lock as quietly as possible and opened it a crack, peering through. The kitchen beyond was pristine, huge and empty; she slid through and eased the door shut.
The party in the next room was a doozy—both louder and not as loud as it had been from the ramp. She'd lost the vibration of feet on floor that she'd had from underneath, but there was something—
She froze and the sound came again. Party, indeed. That had been pellet whine, or her great-aunt Agnes had been hatched from an egg.
She made her way cautiously across the impeccable expanse of floor to the double chrome doors, eased one barely open, and peered out.
Men and women with guns—about thirty of them—deployed with more caution than tactics around the empty echo of the Grotto. Whatever it was they were after was holed up behind the eastern-most bar. And whatever—or whoever—it was could definitely shoot. Whenever one of the armed horde showed the slightest portion of body, that portion suddenly acquired a pellet-hole. Methodical. Which could only mean that the prize in this tiger hunt was her partner.
Miri frowned, then grinned as another of the enemy was punctured—hole in the shooting arm, very pretty.
Odds look about even, she noted. Wouldn't lay a busted bit on either side . . . .
Her grin suddenly widened and she ducked back into the kitchen.
* * *
POLICEMEN, VAL CON THOUGHT, squeezing off another shot, had no sense of humor.
Or sense of futility, for that matter. Why in the name of all they might hold holy would they just sit out there, shooting and being shot at, taking loss after loss and inflicting no damage? Why didn't they just pack up and go home, call it a day, admit they'd been bested—any or all of the above? And soon. He was running out of pellets.
* * *
MIRI PROPPED THE door at the top of the ramp securely open and a little time later did the same for the door into the cellar.
By the sounds, her pursuers were still beating the rows for her. She grinned and moved toward the nearest sound.
The man was peering into a carton that might have concealed her had it not been full of bottles of cleaner. Miri extended a hand and toppled a near bundle of brooms.
He whipped around, pulling his gun, and she was off, making a lot of noise as she ran.
The racket roused his buddies, who came racing to his aid. Miri rounded the corner farthest from the ramp door on one wheel, skidded to a stop in the face of five of them, then whirled and was going back the way she'd come before they had time to understand that she'd been there.
For good measure, she fired a shot over her shoulder, parting the hair of the man in the lead, then she was moving flat out, streaking past another bunch of them, knocking one into three others like tenpins and twisting around the corner to the ramp door.
Roaring, they came after. She checked for a moment, glancing back to make sure that somebody twigged to the vanishing act.
A lean man with no hair whatsoever rounded the corner, gun leveled.
Miri dove through the door.
* * *
IT WAS NOT possible that he could win. He supposed he would take a formidable honor guard with him, but the thought brought no comfort. Nor did the equation that hung before his mind's eye. He gritted his teeth in a final effor
t to banish it: Suicide is an unacceptable solution.
The equation faded, to be replaced by another bearing a strong resemblance to the one he had denied in Edger's presence. Very soon now he would be dead. Miri might yet be alive, but the end for her was also quite near.
He leaned out from his cover and fired, striking his man cleanly in the eye. A pellet screamed by, chipping the plastic by his head as he huddled back into protection. Cracking his gun, he loaded the last of his ammunition and eased his position a little, glancing around the corner of the bar to gauge the next shot.
There was a banshee howl that raised the hairs on the back of his neck, and out of the kitchen burst an apparition in dark leathers and white shirt, brandishing a gun, a squad of armed men at her back.
"We're coming, Tough Guy!" the figure in the lead screamed, firing into the group at siege.
Confused, they returned fire as the rushing squad broke up and made for cover, returning fire on their own while their erstwhile leader dove sideways, rolling, taking advantage of the shelter offered by tables, chairs, and bar to work her way toward his position.
Val Con grinned and waited, occasionally adding shots of his own to the melee to distract his attackers from her movement.
She was at his side in a ridiculously short time. Sighing, she slumped against the inside wall of the bar, peering out at the fight through a filigreed screen.
"Hello, Miri."
She shook her head at him. "I don't know how you get into these fixes. Leave you alone for five minutes—"
"I get into fixes?" He waved at the floor. "What do you call that?"
She opened her eyes wide. "Hey, I'm your rescue, spacer. And I want you to know I wouldn't do this for just anybody."
He laughed and snapped off a shot at a woman crawling toward their hiding place. She collapsed and lay still.
Miri peered out from her end, added a few pellets to the general merrymaking, and ducked back. "Nice party."
"You might think so," he told her, "but I've been here for some time and it's getting a bit rough for my taste."
"Yeah?" She jerked her head toward the most accessible exit, half a block down the room. "Wanna leave?"
"If you don't mind." He cracked his gun, showing her the empty chamber. "Give me some pellets and I'll cover you."
* * *
THE CALL CAME over the emergency channel: All available units to the Grotto, immediately. The description, though terse, sounded more like pitched battle than the arrest of two half-sized bank robbers.
His partner was off at once, sliding his sidearm out as he ran. Charlie took two steps in that direction and stopped, near blinded by a flash of brilliance.
Spinning on his heel, he headed for the lot at Ponce and Celeste, moving at a dead run.
* * *
MIRI WENT OVER the fence while Val Con circled around to the front of the lot, checking the street.
She dropped silently from the top and moved quickly in the deepening dusk, using the few vehicles there were for cover, striking out in a diagonal and wondering what she would do if there were two red cars parked in the front row, facing out.
She left the shadow of the last car enroute and stepped out into the open.
There was only one car in the first row. Between her and it loomed a figure, too tall and much too blocky.
She froze, hand twitching toward her gun in reaction before she stilled it.
"Hi, Charlie."
"Hello, Roberta." His own gun was out, steady on her gut. "Where's your brother?"
"Bound to be around somewhere," she said lightly, keeping her eyes on his face, not on the gun. "He usually is."
"He wouldn't be down the Grotto, would he? Shooting cops with the rest of the Juntavas?" He was coldly sure of it, and the certainty kept his gun hand from shaking.
Can you shoot her—kill her—if you have to? he asked himself. He didn't know.
She was shaking her head. "We ain't Juntavas, Charlie."
"No? The cops go in to get you, the Juntavas goes in across the street and—boom! A war. Juntavas protects its own, but it ain't much on helping out strangers."
"It was an accident. And the explanation's complicated." She decided to push it. "Charlie, look, I'm in a hurry, okay? How 'bout I give you a call next time I'm in town, we have a drink and tell you all about it?"
No reaction. She hadn't really expected one, not with him in uniform and all, but it had seemed worth the try. Where the hell was Tough Guy?
"The story out of Mixla 'quarters," Charlie was saying, "is your brother's wanted for killing five people—eight-year-old kid was one of 'em." He watched her face closely, trying to gauge her acting ability.
She frowned and shook her head. "Not since I've known him. Not a baby." She took a breath. "Not to say he wouldn't. Just that he hasn't. I think."
Her gaze sharpened, locking on a movement in the dusk beyond his shoulder. Almost, she sighed.
"Charlie," she said, very quietly. "I like you, which is why I didn't draw on you and why I'm telling you this: There's a man behind you with a gun. He'll kill you, without an instant's hesitation or a moment's remorse, unless you drop that piece now."
He hesitated, weighing the chance of it being a lie, keeping the gun where it was.
She flung out both hands, her face revealing something that looked like fear in the uncertain light.
"C'mon, Charlie!"
He dropped the gun and kicked it to one side.
"That's fine," she said gently. "I'm real sorry, but you're gonna have a headache when you wake up."
The blow clipped him just above the left ear, hard enough to do the job. He carried her face with him into unconsciousness.
* * *
THE SLEEK BROWN car moved with sedate purpose through the streets of Econsey, toward the mainland and the shuttleport. The windows were opaqued so that the vulgar were denied a view of the vehicle's occupants. The emitter broadcast its message to all with the means to read it.
"Wasn't that just a bit harsh?" inquired the man in the seat next to the driver.
"Wasn't which?" she asked, slowing to a stop in obedience to a flashing signal.
"He will kill you, without an instant's hesitation or a moment's remorse . . . ." he quoted flatly.
She glanced at him. He was sitting straight in the comfortable seat, staring out the window. The tension in him puzzled her. She eased the car through the intersection as the light steadied and shrugged her shoulders.
"You have shown that tendency in the past," she said as mildly as possible.
Perhaps he snorted. Or perhaps he only let loose a breath that had been too long held, all at once, and with a vengeance.
"I'll try to rehabilitate myself," he said, and there was no inflection at all in his voice. After a moment, he slid down in the seat, moving his shoulders until he found comfort within the cushions, and closed his eyes. "Don't stop for anything," he told her. "And wake me when we get to the port."
It was her turn to snort, but he did not appear to hear; the rhythm of his breathing told her that he was asleep.
Irritably, she yanked on the wheel, snapping the car from left to right. He rolled bonelessly with the jerk, his breathing unaltered.
"I guess you'll want tea and crumpets when we get there," she muttered. She smoothed the car through another curve and onto the main highway.
* * *
THE BEST PLACE for a roadblock was on the Econsey side of the last bridge to the mainland, and that was exactly where they'd set it up. Miri sighed and let the car slow fractionally.
"Hey, sleeping beauty."
He eased to a sitting position, in no hurry about it.
"Roadblock," she told him, stating the obvious.
"Maintain your speed."
She slanted a glance at his face. He didn't look crazy. But, then, he never did. Well, what the hell. She kept the car on course and steady.
The roadblock loomed closer, lights flashing, and she could make out the expre
ssions on the faces of the people lining the roadway before them.
Then something very strange happened. The 'block began to move clear of the road and the guard fell back, holstering their pieces or bringing them to rest.
Miri took a deep breath, meticulously keeping the pace.
The roadblock lumbered clear a bare moment before impact. Miri let her breath out in rationed units as the brown car continued its stately progress across the bridge and onto the mainland.
"Tough Guy?"
"Yes?" He was settling back into the seat, no doubt arranging himself for another nap.
"Why'd they do that?"
"Possibly they judged an interplanetary incident too high a price to pay for stopping and searching the Yxtrang ambassador's private vehicle." He yawned.
"Oh." She was silent for a short time, digesting his words. "I don't want to pry into your private life or anything, but you didn't by any chance steal this car from the Yxtrang, did you?"
"To the best of my knowledge, the Yxtrang delegation for this sector is presently on Omenski."
"Good place for them," she agreed. "Hope they fall in love with the place and never leave." She made a left-hand turn into a wide thoroughfare and then the tower light from the shuttleport was directly before them.
"Sorry I'm so dense," she said, "but I didn't have a nap. What made the cops think we were the Yxtrang ambassador?"
"The emitter says we are." He shook his head and sat up straighter in his seat. "I'm afraid I must have read the wrong code out of the manual at the rental office. It was really very hard to read—grainy and flickering. One of the connectors loose, I should think."
She looked at him. "You wouldn't have had anything to do with that, I guess."
He turned to face her, eyes wide. "How could I have?"
"Never mind, I don't think I really want to know."
The port was less than a half-block distant now and she was beginning to feel loose for the first time since she and Murph had started their negotiations.
We just might pull it—
"Oh, damn." She swung the car—easily, easily—into a side street, moved to the end, and turned into a wider avenue, heading away from the tower light.
