by Timothy Zahn
Still, he'd been taught how to make inferences from the physical appearance of structures, and even given that his data was second-hand he was able to form a reasonable picture of what Tyler had set up to defend his home.
And the picture wasn't an especially encouraging one.
"The main gate is shaped like this," Ilona said, sketching barely visible lines with her finger on the tabletop. "It's supposed to be electronically locked and made with twenty-centimeter-thick kyrelium steel, same as the interior section of the wall."
Briefly, Jonny tried to calculate how long it would take to punch a hole through that much kyrelium with his antiarmor laser. The number came out on the order of several hours. "Any of the house's fancy stonework on the outer side?"
"Not on the gate itself, but there are two relief carvings flanking it on the wall. About here and here." She pointed.
Sensor clusters, most likely, and probably weapons as well. Facing inward as well as outward? No way of knowing, but it wasn't likely to matter with twenty centimeters of kyrelium blocking the way. "Well, that only leaves going over the wall," he sighed. "What's he got up there?"
"As far as I know, nothing."
Jonny frowned. "He's got to have some defenses up there, Ilona. Five-meter walls haven't been proof against attackers since ladders were invented. Um... what about the corners? Any raised stonework or anything there?"
"Nope." She was emphatic. "Nothing but flat wall all the way around the grounds."
Which meant no photoelectric/laser beam setup along the wall. Could Tyler really have left such an obvious loophole in his defenses? Of course, anything coming over the wall could be targeted by the house's lasers, but that approach depended on temperamental and potentially jammable highspeed electronics; and even if they worked properly, a fair amount of the shot was likely to expend its energy on other than the intended target. Sloppy and dangerous. No, Tyler must have had something else in mind. But what?
And then a pair of stray facts intersected in Jonny's mind. Tyler had built his mansion along Reginine lines; and Jonny's late teammate, Parr Noffke, had been from that same world. Had he ever said anything that might provide a clue...?
He had. The day of the trainees' first modest test, the one Jonny had afterward nearly broken Viljo's face over. Our wall lasers, Noffke had commented, point up, not across.
And then, of course, it was obvious. Obvious and sobering. Instead of four lasers arranged to fire horizontally along the walls, Tyler had literally hundreds of the things lined up together like logs in an old palisade, aiming straight up from inside the wall. A horribly expensive barrier, but one that could defend against low projectiles and ground-hug missiles as well as grappler-equipped intruders. Quick, operationally simple, and virtually foolproof.
And almost undoubtedly the Trofts' planned deathtrap.
Jonny swallowed, the irony of it bitter on his tongue. This was exactly what he'd wanted: some insight into how the aliens expected to stop him... and now that he knew, the whole thing looked more hopeless than ever. Unless he could somehow get to the control circuitry for those lasers, there was no way he and
Ilona would get beyond the wall without being solidly slagged.
He became aware that Ilona was watching him, a look of strained patience on her face. "Well? Any chance of getting through the gate?"
"I doubt it," Jonny shook his head. "But we won't have to. Up and over is a far better bet."
"Up and over? You mean climb a five-meter wall?"
"I mean jump it. I think I can manage it without too much trouble." In actual fact the wall's height was the least of their troubles, but there was no point telling the hidden listeners that.
"What about the defenses you said might be there?"
"Shouldn't pose any real problem," Jonny lied, again for the Trofts' benefit. He didn't dare appear too naive; it might arouse their suspicions. "I suspect
Tyler's got his wall lasers built into elevating turrets at the corners. With all that stonework available to hide sensors in, there'd be no problem getting them up in time if someone started to climb in. I haven't seen that sort of arrangement on Adirondack before, but it's a logical extension of your usual defense laser setup, especially for someone with the classical aesthetics Tyler seems to have. Actually, I'm a lot more worried about getting to the wall in the first place. I want you to tell me everything you can remember about the route the Trofts used to get you to this room."
She nodded, and as she launched into a listing of rooms, hallways, and staircases, he knew she was satisfied with his spun-sugar theory. Now if only he'd similarly convinced the Trofts to let them get all the way to the deathtrap.
And if he could figure out a way through it.
His internal clock said ten p.m., and it was time to go.
Jonny had been of two minds about choosing a nighttime rather than an afternoon breakout. In the afternoon there would have been people beyond the Tyler
Mansion's walls; crowds for the two fugitives to disappear into if they got that far, witnesses perhaps to their deaths-and the mansion's significance-if they didn't. But hiding in crowds made little sense if the Trofts were willing to slaughter civilians in order to get the two of them. Besides, forcing the
Trofts' outdoor weaponry to rely on radar, infrared, and light amplification for targeting might prove a minor advantage.
Those were the reasons he gave Ilona. One more-that the aliens might not risk letting them even get to the wall in broad daylight-he kept to himself.
He was lying on his back on the table, hands folded across his chest; Ilona sat beside him, her knees pulled close to her chest, apparently contemplating the door. Ilona's inactivity wasn't an act: he'd quoted a ten-thirty jump-off time to her. Whether or not the Trofts could be fooled by so simple a trick he would probably never know, but it had certainly been worth a try.
Taking a deep breath, Jonny activated his omnidirectional sonic weapon.
There was a tingle in his gut, a slight vibration as the buried speakers brushed harmonics of natural body resonances. Straining his ears, he could almost hear the ultrasonic pitch changing as the sound dug into the walls, seeking resonances with the tiny audio and visual sensors open to it....
The full treatment was supposed to require a minute, but Jonny had no intention of giving the Trofts that much warning. He didn't need to knock out the sensors permanently, but just to fog as many of them as possible while he made his move.
He gave it five seconds; and just as Ilona began looking around the room with a frown he lifted his left leg slightly and fired.
The upper hinge of the door literally exploded, scattering solid and semisolid bits of itself in a shower to the floor. Beside him, Ilona yelped with surprise; in a single smooth motion, Jonny slid forward so that he could target the lower hinge and fired again. This shot didn't hit the inner sections quite as cleanly, and the explosive vaporization that had taken out the upper hinge didn't occur.
Jonny fired three more times, adding his fingertip lasers to the assault, and within seconds the hinge was dangling loosely against the wall. Gripping the edge of the table, he hurled himself feet-first at the hinge side of the door like a self-guided battering ram. The door creaked under the impact, displaced by a centimeter or two. Regaining his balance, Jonny jumped across the room, turned and tried it again, his hands providing a last-second boost from the table as he passed it. The table survived; the door, fortunately, did not. With a shriek of scraping metal, it popped out of its frame and sagged at an odd angle, held off the floor only by its lock mechanism.
"You said ten-thirty," Ilona growled. She was already at the door by the time he got his balance, peering cautiously outside.
"I got impatient," Jonny returned, joining her. "Looks clear enough; come on."
Stepping past the ruined door, they headed out into a dimly lit hallway.
Enhancers on full, Jonny scanned the walls and floor quickly as he led Ilona in a quick jog. Nothing seemed to b
e there-
They were nearly on top of it when Jonny spotted the slight discoloration in the wall that indicated a disguised photocell at knee height. "Detector!" he snapped, slowing to let Ilona catch up. Pointing it out would have taken unnecessary time; grabbing her upper arms, he swung her over the invisible beam and then jumped over himself. Too easy, he thought uncomfortably. Far too easy.
He knew the Trofts wanted him to get through their gauntlet alive, but this was ridiculous.
It stopped being ridiculous at the end of the hall.
Jonny paused there, at the threshold of a large room; but neither a complete stop nor a full-speed sprint would have done him a scrap of good. Flanking the hallway exit were two quarter-circles of armored Trofts.
Stepping back into the hallway would have been no more than a temporary solution. Shoving Ilona back into that modest protection, he bent his knees and jumped.
The ceiling here wasn't as sturdy as the one back in Freyr Complex's Room C-662, the one Bai had first demonstrated on. But it was sturdy enough, and Jonny hit the floor with balance intact and only a minor snowstorm of shattered ceiling tiles accompanying him. Hit the floor, twisted... and as the Troft lasers began to track, he threw himself spinning onto his shoulderblades.
Bai had called the maneuver a break, for obscure historical reasons; the trainees had privately dubbed it the backspin. Curled up in a half-fetal position, knees tucked almost to his chest, Jonny's antiarmor laser swept the line of soldiers, flashing instant death. Only three of the dozen or so soldiers escaped that first salvo, and they died on Jonny's second spin.
The metallic clink of armor-clad bodies hitting floor had barely ceased before
Jonny was back in a crouch, eyes darting around. "Ilona!" he stage-whispered.
"Come on." Peering into the hall, he saw her leap to her feet and trot toward him.
"Good Lord!" she gasped. "Was all of that you?"
"All of it that counted." Which proved all by itself he'd been right about the
Trofts' plan. He should at least have picked up some light burns from that exchange. "That door?"
"Right. Remember that it's a stairway."
"Got it."
Like the hallway, the stairs proved to be free of major threats. Probably, Jonny decided, whatever sensors it contained were designed to study his equipment immediately after use, perhaps looking for theoretical limits or emission signatures. Triggering his sonic again, he led Ilona around the two photocells the stairway contained and braced himself for whatever he would find above.
The Trofts' first try had been a straightforward attack. This one was only marginally more subtle. Stretched across the floor, between the fugitives and the room's only exit, was a three-meter-wide black band. Jonny sniffed, caught a whiff of the same smell he remembered from the net at the Wolker Plant. "Glue patch," he warned Ilona, searching the walls with his eyes. A vertical strip of photocells stretched from floor to ceiling at either end of the adhesive; six almost-flat boxes adorned the walls beyond. Unlike the more permanent-looking photocells back in the hall and stairway, this trap had the air of having been hastily set up for the occasion.
Ilona, for a change, was right with him on this one. "So we jump and get hit by something while we're in mid-air?" she murmured tensely.
"Looks like it." Jonny stepped to the side wall near the adhesive and extended his right arm. "I'll try some simple sabotage. Get back into the stairwell, just in case."
His arcthrower flashed even as she obeyed... and he discovered just how badly he'd underestimated the Troft ability to learn.
Across the room one of the flat boxes abruptly disintegrated before a spinning mass that shot out directly toward him. The mass flattened as it came, its spin unfolding it into a giant mesh net.
He had no time then to regret having demonstrated his arcthrower's range a few hours previously; no time to do anything but get out of the way fast.
And his programmed reflexes did their best. Dropping him toward the floor, his servos threw him in a flat dive at right angles to the net's line of motion. But the room was too small, the net too big; and even as he somersaulted into the wall near the stairway door, the edge of the mesh caught his left shoulder, pinning him to the floor.
Ilona was out of her shelter like a shot. "You all right?" she asked, hurrying toward him.
He waved her away and twisted up on one elbow. Cutting the mesh would perhaps be simplest, but if the glue contained a contact soporific again, he didn't want to risk carrying a patch of it along with them. Bracing himself, he jerked abruptly, tearing the trapped sleeve neatly off at the shoulder.
"Now what?" Ilona asked as he scrambled to his feet.
"We give up on the subtle approach. Get ready to move." Sequentially targeting the remaining five wall boxes, he raised his hands and fired.
He was half afraid the attack would trigger the firing mechanisms instead of destroying them. But as each box shattered and the briefly lingering laser beam swept the coiled net behind, it began to look like the Trofts had missed a bet.
Until he noticed the pale brown smoke rising from the burning nets....
"Hold your breath!" he snapped at Ilona. Stepping to her side, he grabbed her in a shoulder-and-thigh grip and jumped.
Not simply across the adhesive strip, but all the way to the door at the other end of the room. A potentially disastrous maneuver, but the Trofts fortunately had not hooked any more booby-traps to their photocell strip. The door was closed, but Jonny had no intention of pausing to see whether or not it was locked: he landed on his left foot, his right already snapping out in a servo-powered kick beside the doorknob. The panel shattered with gratifying ease, and-still carrying Ilona-he charged on through.
The room beyond was much smaller and, like the others he'd encountered so far, completely barren of furniture. It would have been nice to pause at the threshold and check for traps, but with expanding clouds of unknown gas in the room just behind, that was a luxury he couldn't afford. Instead, he took the whole five meters at a dead run, avoiding a straight-line path to the door opposite but otherwise relying solely on his combat reflexes to get them through safely.
And whatever the Trofts had set up, they apparently were taken by surprise by his maneuver. Reaching the door unscathed, he wrenched it open and slipped through, dropping Ilona back to the floor and slamming the door behind them.
They were, as Jonny had expected, in the middle of a long hallway. Snapping his hands into firing position, he gave the place a quick survey, then focused again on Ilona. "You okay?"
"The bruises from this are going to be interesting," she said, reaching around to rub her rear where he'd been gripping her. "Otherwise okay. I came in that way-second door from the end, I think."
"I hope you're right." It wasn't a trivial point; Trofts routinely sealed off interior doors in buildings they took over, and a wrong turn could put them into a section of maze Ilona knew nothing at all about. At least it was a hallway, and therefore-if the Trofts kept to their pattern so far-presumably not booby-trapped. The breather would be nice to have. "Okay; let's go."
And with his attention on the walls, his assumptions firmly in mind, he nearly lost it all right there and then.
It started as a humming in his gut, similar to that caused by his own sonic weaponry, and it was pure luck that they were nearly to a node of the standing wave when he finally woke up to what was happening and skidded to an abrupt halt. "What?" Ilona gasped as she bumped into him.
"Infrasonic attack," he snapped. The humming had become a wave of nausea now, and his head was beginning to throb. "Hallway's a resonance cavity. We're standing at a node."
"Can't stay here," she managed, sagging against him and gripping her own stomach.
"I know. Hang on." There were only seconds, he estimated, before they were both too sick to move, and unfortunately the Trofts had left him only one option for a response. He'd hoped to keep at least one weapon out of their view on this trip, but with
no indication where their infrasonic generator was located, his lasers were useless. Clutching the unsteady Ilona to his side, out of the direct line of fire, he activated his sonic disrupter and began sweeping the ends of the hallway.
