by Timothy Zahn
Oddly enough, though—or so it seemed to him—the suffocating panic had dissipated far enough for him to be able to think again. His incredible jump had been a sledge-hammer reminder both of the power his Cobra equipment gave him and of the fact that his father, too, had once been imprisoned like this and had survived.
A sheet of light swept by: one of the landing doors he'd jumped past seconds ago. On a hunch, he shoved off the cable toward it, fingers and feet finding holds on framework and opening-mechanism bars. He found a narrow ledge to stand on and regained his balance as, a meter away, the cable continued its way down.
Carefully, he took a shuddering breath. I am Justin Moreau, he reminded himself firmly. A Cobra, following in my father's footsteps. I will—I will—survive this. Fine. So how do I start?
One thing was for sure: he had several floors to go before he even got to the surface. Shifting his grip, he leaned out as far as he safely could. The position of the door directly above could be inferred from reflected light, but there were too many bars and other metallic junk in the way for it to be visible. So jumping floor to floor was out; ditto for climbing through stuff that questionable. A service ladder? But a quick survey of the shaft showed nothing that would serve such a function.
A meter away, the cable abruptly slowed and stopped . . . and from below came the faint sound of elevator doors opening.
Again Justin shifted position, swinging his left leg to point directly toward the hole he'd cut in the car's ceiling and simultaneously bringing up his optical enhancers' magnification capabilities. The sight of the bodies on the floor sent a fresh wave of revulsion through him; but before he had time for more than a quick shiver there was an explosion of Qasaman voices from below, and someone stepped into the car.
Damn. Justin mouthed the word, caught once more in indecision. Should he try and get out of the shaft before the Qasamans below came to the obvious conclusion as to his whereabouts, or should he stay and try to discourage pursuit?
The decision was made for him. Abruptly, the figure below became a face and a pistol, and the shaft thundered with the echo of his shot.
A wild shot, of course; he couldn't have any idea where Justin actually was. The Cobra's response was considerably more accurate, and even at this range the antiarmor laser was perfectly adequate for such a purpose. The gunner fell in a heap onto the bodies beneath him. A second face appeared, and Justin shot that one, too—
And from below came the sound of the car's doors closing. A second later, the cable beside him started upwards.
Justin gaped for a couple of heartbeats before his mental wheels caught and he jumped over to again cling to the cable. What had happened was now obvious: having reached the floor Moff had sent it to, the elevator was now responding to the buttons Justin had pushed on the way down.
For the moment, at least, Justin seemed to be one step ahead of them.
After the flurry of activity preceding it, the ride toward ground level seemed to drag on and on, and it gave him the chance to assess his own injuries. Both hands, particularly the little fingers, were speckled with tiny molten-metal burns from his blasting of the handcuff chain an eternity earlier. The rings themselves were biting hard into his wrists as he pressed against the greasy cable. Something, presumably blood, was dripping slowly down his cheek from a cut over his left eye that hurt like blazes. He hadn't realized before that any of the mojos had gotten so close . . . and the thought of what might have happened—or could yet happen—
Reality broke into the uncomfortable speculation: the elevator was slowing down. The car, he estimated, was about three floors below him. When the doors opened he would begin sliding down the cable toward it, keeping his antiarmor laser aimed and ready. If the Qasamans still hadn't caught on he would drop through the ceiling hole, out the door, and make a mad dash for the exit, relying on his speed and computerized reflexes to get him through.
Below him the car doors opened—and as they did, the top of the car was abruptly flooded with light and the roar of sustained gunfire exploded into the shaft.
Justin jerked violently, nearly losing his grip. The car was already being obscured by a haze of smoke. Through it the staccato flashing of the guns lit up the shaft with an unearthly glow. Splinters of shattered steel scythed the air in counterpoint to the invisible battering of the bullets that were demolishing everything in range.
And Justin's brief respite from panic was over.
Across from him another of the landing doors was visible in the flickering light. As the barrage below reached its peak his leg swung convulsively around, the laser within it tracing a distorted ellipse across the doors. For that heart-rending second it didn't matter that the Qasamans might have a dozen gunmen ringing each elevator door; didn't even matter that a moment's study probably would have revealed an emergency mechanism that might have given them far less warning of his presence. All that mattered was that the guns below could be turned upwards at any second, and that he wanted out of the deathtrap now. Twisting his legs to the horizontal, he shoved hard against the cable with his hands. The charred ellipse broke like foil as he hit it, and he flew helplessly into the hallway beyond, slamming into the far wall and bouncing off into a barely balanced crouch.
The hallway was empty.
For a long moment he sat there trembling on his haunches, his brain struggling to pierce the unreality of the situation to figure out what had happened. They knew he was in the shaft—the roar of gunfire still coming from below more than proved that. So why weren't all the exits from the shaft being guarded?
Because they thought he was still on the elevator roof?
Probably. A concealed weapon would likely not have been powerful enough to kill the two men from any further away than the roof. And they wouldn't have any idea just how high his servos let him jump.
Getting to his feet, he gulped a ragged breath and took stock of the situation. The hallway stretched for thirty meters or so in both directions, its walls lined with incomprehensibly labeled doors. At the far ends small windows reflected his image.
Small, but probably large enough to get through. Picking the closest of the two ends, Justin headed for it at a dead run.
And he almost made it. But if guarding all exits from the elevator shaft hadn't been the Qasamans' first priority, neither had it been forgotten. His own footsteps masking the sound of their approach, Justin's first warning was the blood-chilling scream of a mojo directly behind him. He twisted around, getting just the briefest glimpse of talons arcing for his face before his nanocomputer took over.
The servos in his legs wrenched him to the side, out of the mojo's line of flight. Its wingtips brushed his face as it overshot him, screaming again in what sounded uncannily like rage. At the far end of the hall, five Qasamans had come from somewhere, their guns aimed and ready; and four more mojos were sweeping to the attack.
And for the second time that night the sight of the birds drove all reason and nerve from his mind. Falling backwards to slam against the wall, he snapped his burned hands up . . . and as his brain fogged over with terror, his nanocomputer turned them into fountains of laser fire.
He came to a few seconds later to find all five mojos dead. At the end of the hallway, he could see at least three Qasaman bodies, as well. The survivors—if there'd been any—had vanished.
Witnesses to his Cobra firepower; but that thought didn't occur to Justin until a long time afterwards. Back on his feet, he headed again for his target window, sonic disrupter focused on it. The weapon found and locked onto the window's primary resonance, increased its amplitude . . . and with Justin two steps from it, the glass shattered, taking much of the sash framework with it in its violent demise. Increasing his speed, Justin put down his head and dove through the hole.
Three floors below him, the edge of the tower was a blaze of floodlights and the crazy-quilt shadow pattern of running men. Justin saw just enough to realize he would most likely land outside the lit area before his nanocompu
ter pulled his arms and legs tightly in toward his torso. He tensed; but a second later when the limbs snapped out to normal position again he was relieved to find the computer's calculation had been correct. Properly vertical once more, he hit the ground on his feet, servos taking the impact as they fought against his forward momentum to regain his balance before he ran full tilt into the building immediately across from his former prison. The effort was a success; turning to run parallel to the building, he sprinted to the nearest corner and rounded it.
He'd not had a chance yet to really focus on his surroundings, but as he picked up speed now he realized the universe had betrayed him one final time. Directly ahead the buildings and street abruptly gave way to the sort of open grassland that surrounded Sollas as well. The bus had taken him through several kilometers of city before reaching the tower; ergo, what he faced now was Purma's southwestern edge.
He was running directly away from Rynstadt and Cerenkov . . . directly away from the Dewdrop.
I should turn around, he thought. Or at least circle around a block or two and head back along a different street. But his feet kept running; and as he crossed the sharp line between city and grassland he finally recognized that no intentions in the world were going to make his body turn around. Behind him were the mojos, and the paralyzing fear their talons induced in him was far more terrifying than the talons themselves.
His father had faced the might of whole Troft armies and won through without flinching . . . and his only Cobra son had turned out to be a coward.
The city was far behind him now, but as Justin keyed in his optical enhancers he saw the forest that had flanked the road into Purma had receded sharply this far south. The nearest edge, his enhancers' range finder told him, was over a kilometer away—much too far to reach in time if the Qasamans had taken up the chase. Throwing a glance over his shoulder, Justin skidded to a halt and dropped down on his stomach in the knee-high grass, turning to face the city with all senses alert.
But so far there was no sign of pursuit. Did they think he'd headed north, as he should have? Or were they perhaps not even aware yet that he'd escaped from the building?
There was no way to tell . . . and with emotional fatigue washing over him, Justin almost didn't even care. Whatever he did now, Cerenkov and Rynstadt were as good as dead unless Pyre had already managed to free them. No matter how fast Justin got to their prison, he would find the place hip-deep in guards.
His burns and bruises throbbed with aches both sharp and dull, but they were no match for his fatigue. Slowly but inexorably his eyelids dragged themselves closed, his head sank down to rest pillowed on his arms, his shame found the only oblivion available.
He slept.
Chapter 20
For the third time in five minutes a vehicle approached from ahead, and for the third time Pyre tensed and forced himself to maintain a steady walk. The vehicle passed without slowing, and the Cobra sighed quietly with relief.
Momentary relief, at best. If his memory of Sollas's layout was correct, he was only two or three blocks from the building where Joshua and the others had been taken a week ago to meet Mayor Kimmeron. The trip so far had indicated that no one was considering the possibility that any of the Aventinians could have made it this deep into the city, but it was equally clear that the bubble could burst any time now. There were bound to be sentries surrounding the mayoral office, as well as various people scurrying around with errands as these supposedly peaceful people continued their war against the Dewdrop. A straight-in penetration, Cobra firepower or no, was likely to be pretty bloody. On both sides.
But so far he'd been unable to come up with anything better. He'd passed a handful of parked cars, but a quick check had shown their drive mechanisms were locked and he had no idea how to bypass the system. Rooftop jumping was possible, but its usefulness decreased in direct proportion to the number of nearby ears that might hear the thud of the landing and eyes that might see the leap itself. If he had some timed bombs he could set up a diversion a few blocks from his goal; but none of his meager supply of equipment could be adapted to such a purpose. The propellant in the bullets, perhaps? Surely there was a goodly amount of it—you didn't take down an animal the size of a bololin without a lot of punch behind the projectile.
Bololins. . . .
The ghost of an idea brushed his mind. Looking around quickly to make sure he was unobserved, Pyre found a dark section of wall and began to climb.
The rooftop, when he reached it, didn't have what he was looking for; but a careful study showed a likely candidate two buildings away. Two jumps later he was squatting next to a square yellow box mounted with a large-mouthed horn.
A bololin alarm.
Fingertip lasers made quick work of the box's access panel, and Pyre was soon poking gingerly around the wires and components inside. The reasonable way to set such a device up was to run it off the building's own power supply, with the on/off switch several floors down and inaccessible . . . but if the Qasamans had been as cautious here as they seemed to be everywhere else. . . .
And they had. The horn's emergency battery took up nearly a quarter of the box's volume.
A few minutes' work tracing wires and Pyre had the system figured out. Cutting the main power line here would allow the battery—and, more importantly, the emergency trigger switch—into the circuit. The battery's switch seemed to be designed for radio control, though. He would have to come up with some other way to trigger the thing.
By the time the preliminary cutting and adjustments were complete he'd thought of one. Maybe.
It took nearly fifteen minutes more to complete the jury-rig trigger. Then, wiping the sweat off his forehead, he took a moment to study the landscape. The mayor's office . . . that one there, probably. Circle cautiously and find a roof past it to wait on . . . that one.
Glancing at his watch, Pyre grimaced. Time was slipping away from him, and with each lost minute the chances increased that the Qasamans would kill one of their hostages or take some action against the Dewdrop. Dropping down the side of the building, he began to run silently through the deserted streets.
Luck was with him. Fifteen minutes later he was on his chosen rooftop, ready to go. Two buildings away, the mayoral building was, from the muted sounds reaching his ears, indeed surrounded by milling groups of people. Four blocks beyond it Pyre's optical enhancers located the bololin alarm and the stolen light-amp binoculars resting atop the box there. Taking a deep breath, Pyre locked onto the binoculars, raised his left leg, and sent a low-power antiarmor shot toward it.
The light triggered a pulse through the light-amp's electronics, a pulse which Pyre's rewiring sent not to the lenses but around the alarm's emergency switch system—
And the hoot of the horn tore into the darkness.
Pyre was ready. Stray eyes were still a danger, but for the moment there was no way anyone in the street below was going to hear the impact of his landings. He reached the edge of his building and jumped, getting a glimpse of running people below. He hit the next roof, crossed it in a dead run, and with a quick prayer to the patron of fools, jumped again.
Not to the mayoral building roof, but to a spot midway down the side—and that only to provide a slight braking impact before he hit the street. The building was seven stories high, its lit windows testifying to activity inside, and Pyre knew he was taking a big gamble going in at ground level. But the mayor's office itself had been on the first floor, and the Cobra was betting that Qasaman paranoia would bury the most important facilities underground.
And then he hit the street and there was no time left for planning and thought. Most of the thirty or so people in sight were hurrying away from him in the direction of the hooting alarm, but the two who flanked the ornate door were standing fast . . . and their frozen astonishment didn't extend to their mojos.
But the birds saw no drawn weapon, and their movements were the slow ones of surprised study instead of the swifter ones of attack. Pyre targeted
and shot both out of the air; and then, as the guards belatedly reacted, he shot them as well. He took the three outside steps in a single bound and slipped inside.
He hadn't been paying all that much attention to the route the one time Cerenkov's team had been in this place, but fortunately the layout seemed straightforward. Pyre followed the main corridor to the first junction and branched right. At the next cross corridor he turned left, aiming toward the center of the building—and there, barely ten meters away, were the two liveried guards he remembered seeing at the mayor's door.
They looked at him in frowning surprise, hands dropping to their guns. Pyre shot both of them out from under their mojos, then killed the birds as they tried to disengage their talons from their epaulet perches and become airborne. Mentally bracing himself, he shoved the doors open and stepped inside, hands held at the ready.
It was almost a repeat of the scene he'd seen through Joshua's sensors the last time, with two important exceptions. The fumes that both he and the contact team had missed out on before were an almost literal sledgehammer to the nose, bringing him to an abrupt halt and nearly gagging him. And this time the mayor's cushiony throne was vacant.
It took Pyre a handful of heartbeats to get his breath and voice back. For the people seated at the low tables around the throne, those few seconds turned out to be their salvation. Whether the fumes enhanced their mental processes or whether they were simply naturally observant he didn't know, but by the time he was able to function again all of them had apparently deduced who he was and were making mad dashes from the room. Within seconds the scene was deserted.
"Damn," Pyre murmured under his breath. The smoke, he discovered, tasted odd, too. Clicking up his audio enhancers, he held his breath . . . and from somewhere out of sight among the free-hanging curtains he heard the faint sound of shallow breathing.
So they hadn't all made it out of boltholes. Was the straggler armed? Probably . . . though none of the others had tried to use their guns, and that carried some interesting implications. But even if the skulker was afraid to shoot, Pyre had no desire to hunt him down in this maze, with only the diffuse sounds of breathing to guide him. But there might be another way. If the mojos were really as touchy about weapons as they'd seemed when the contact team first stepped outside the Dewdrop's lock . . .
