"Matt, where are we? I tried to get to the void edge--"
Somebody bellowed, "We are in the Hospital vivarium!" The voice cut like an ax through the rising pandemonium. Harry Kane, Leader, assumed his proper role.
"That's right," Matt said gently.
Her eyes were two inches from his, dead level. "Oh. Then you didn't make it either."
"Yes I did. I had to get here on my own."
"What-how?"
"Good question. I don't know exactly--"
Laney began to chuckle.
Shouting from the back of the room. Somebody had noticed an Implementation uniform on one of the newly awakened. A scream of pure terror changed to a yell of agony and died abruptly. Matt saw jerking heads, heard sounds he tried to ignore. Laney wasn't laughing anymore. The disturbance subsided.
Harry Kane had mounted a chair, He cupped his hands and bellowed, "Shut up, all of you! Everyone who knows the map of the Hospital, get over here! Gather round me!" There was a shifting in the mass. Laney and Matt still clung to each other, but not desperately now. Their heads turned to watch Harry, acknowledging his leadership. "Take a look, the rest of you!" Harry shouted. "These are the people who can lead you out of here. In a minute we're going to have to make our break. Keep your eyes on ...." He named eight names. Hood's was one. "Some of us are going to get shot. As long as one of these eight is still moving, follow him! Or her. If all eight are down, and I am too"--he paused for emphasis--"scatter! Make as much trouble as you can! Sometimes the only sensible thing to do is panic!
"Now, who got us out of this? Who woke us up? Anyone?"
"Me," said Matt.
A last buzz of noise died. Suddenly everyone was looking at him. Harry said, "How?"
"I'm not sure how I got in here. I'd like to talk to Hood about it."
"Okay, stick with Jay. Keller, isn't it? We're grateful, Keller. What do those buttons do? I saw you fooling with them."
"They turn off whatever it is that makes you go to sleep."
"Is anyone still in his couch? If so, get out of it now. Now, somebody push those buttons back in so it'll look like there was a power failure. Was that it, Keller? Did you just accidentally wake up?"
"No."
Harry Kane looked puzzled, but when Matt didn't elaborate, he shrugged. "Watson, Chek, start pushing those buttons in. Jay, make sure you stick with Keller. The rest of you, are you ready to move?"
There was a shout of assent. As it died, a lone voice asked, "Where to?"
"Good point. If you get free, make for the coral houses around the south void and Alpha-Beta cliffs. Anything else?"
Nobody spoke, including Matt. Why ask questions to which nobody knew the answers? Matt was unutterably relieved to let someone else make the decisions for a while. They might be just as wrong, but ninety-eight rebels could be a mighty force, even moving in the wrong direction. And Harry Kane was a born leader.
Laney moved out of his arms-but kept a grip on one hand. Matt became conscious of the handcuffs dangling from his wrists. They might hamper him. Jay Hood moved up beside him, looking rumpled. He shook hands, grinning, but the grin didn't match the fear in his eyes, and he seemed reluctant to let go. Was there one person in this room who wasn't terrified? If there was, it wasn't Matt. He pulled the sonic loose from his pants pocket.
"All out," said Harry Kane, and butted the door open with a wide shoulder. They streamed into the hall.
"I'll take only a minute of your time, Watts." Jesus Pietro relaxed indolently in his chair. He loved mysteries and proposed to enjoy this one. "I want you to describe in detail what happened last night, starting with the call from Hobart."
"But there aren't any details, sir." Master Sergeant Watts was tired of repeating himself. His voice was turning querulous. "Five minutes after your call, Hobart called and said he had a prisoner. I told him to bring him to my office. He never came. Finally I called the gate. He was there, all right, without his prisoner, and he couldn't explain what had happened. I had to put him under arrest."
"His behavior has been puzzling in other ways. That is why I ask, Why didn't you call the gate earlier?"
"Sir?"
"Your behavior is as puzzling as Hobart's, Watts. Why did you assume it would take Hobart half an hour to reach your office?"
"Oh." Watts fidgeted. "Well, Hobart said this bird came right up to the gate and started banging on it with a rock. When Hobart didn't show right away, I thought he must have stopped off to question the prisoner, find out why he did it. After all," he explained hastily, "if he brought the bird straight to me, he'd likely never find out what he was doing banging on the gate."
"Very logical. Did it occur to you at any point that the 'bird' might have overpowered Hobart?"
"But Hobart had a sonic!"
"Watts, have you ever been on a raid?"
"No, sir. How could I?"
"A man came back from the raid of nigbt-before-last with the bones of his nose spread all over his face. He, too, had a sonic."
"Yessir, but that was a raid, sir."
Jesus Pietro sighed. "Thank you, Master Sergeant. Will you step outside, please? Your bird should be arriving any minute."
Watts left, his relief showing.
He'd made a good point, thought Jesus Pietro, though not the one he'd intended. Probably all the Hospital guards had the same idea: that a gun was ipso facto invincible. Why not? The Hospital guards had never been on a raid in the colonist regions. Few had ever seen a colonist who wasn't unconscious. Occasionally Jesus Pietro staged mock raids with guards playing the part of colonists. They didn't mind, particularly; mercy-weapons were not unpleasant. But the men with the guns always won. All the guards' experience told them that the gun was king, that a man who had a gun need fear nothing but a gun.
What to do? Interchange guards and raiders long enough to give the guards some experience? No, the elite raiders would never stand for that.
Why was he worrying about Implementation?
Had the Hospital ever been attacked? Never, on Alpha Plateau. A colonist force had no way to get there.
But Keller had.
He used the phone. "Jansen, find out who was on guard at the Alpha-Beta Bridge last night. Wake them up and send them here."
"It will be at least fifteen minutes, sir."
"Fine."
How had Keller gotten past them? There had been one aircar on Gamma Plateau, but it had been destroyed. With the pilot still in it? Had Keller had a chauffeur? Or would a colonist know how to use the autopilot?
Where the Mist Demons was Keller!
Jesus Pietro began to pace the room. He had no cause for worry, yet he worried. Instinct? He didn't believe he had instincts. The phone spoke in his secretary's voice. "Sir, did you order two guards?"
"Bridge guards?"
"No, sir. Intrahospital guards."
"No."
"Thank you." Click.
Something had set off the grounds alarms last night. Not a rabbit. Keller might have tried the wall first. If the grounds guards had let a prisoner escape, then faked a report--he'd have their hides!
"Sir, these guards insist you sent for them."
"Well, I damn well didn't. Tell them--just a minute. Send them in."
They came, two burly men whose submissive countenances unsuccessfully hid their ire at being made to wait.