The two officers were too deep in discussion to see me coming, until one glimpsed me out of the corner of his eye. By then, it was too late; I had two clear shots at their naked faces. One yelped as the stuff hit him in the eye, and they both tried to haul their sidearms out, but they crumpled slowly to their knees as their nervous systems gave up the ghost.
I went to the console first, and studied the keyboards and the displays on the screens. I managed to conjure up a system-map with lights to indicate the positions of the trains both underground and on top. I knew better than to try to arrange a real crash; what I wanted to do was convince the system that something awful had happened, to get each and every one of its emergency systems going.
I typed in a mayday message, and told the machine there was a blocked tunnel just in front of one of the moving trains. The tell-tale light stopped moving, and I knew that the machines had slammed the brakes on. Then I told the system that there was a fire under the surface, that lives were endangered. It wouldn’t necessarily believe me—it had its own smoke detectors—but the system wasn’t rigged to take risks, and it would take appropriate action pending a check.
Somewhere in the distance alarm bells were beginning to ring.
I tried to think of something else—a crack opening into the cold on level two ... a medical emergency involving some workers. But I was already glancing round fearfully at the main body of the warehouse. There were three or four doorways where people were only too likely to appear at any moment.
I decided that there wasn’t time for further subtlety. I took out the needier I’d borrowed from one of Scarion’s killers, stood well back to avoid the danger of ricochets, and held down the firing stud. I sprayed the slivers of metal all around the console—keyboards, screens, junction-boxes.
The systems believed that emergency, all right. Alarm bells began ringing all around me now, setting up a terrible clamour. Quickly, I dragged one of the officers behind the crates, to buy me an extra couple of minutes when the crowds began to arrive, and stripped off his jacket and trousers. It was more difficult than I had expected, because he was a dead weight and an awkward shape. By the time I was able to start pulling the garments on—without bothering to remove my own first—people did start arriving, over by the tracks and from the farther region of the warehouse as well. I left all the weapons behind except the stricken man’s sidearm, and walked out of hiding with a purposeful stride.
There were soldiers everywhere, plus a couple of neo-Neanderthal civilians and a handful of galactics. I just walked to the side door and went out. Nobody said a word, and I doubt that they even saw me—all attention was focused on the wrecked console and the unconscious officer.
Up on top, no one had a clue what was happening. There were people running along the walkways in several different directions. I didn’t want to be left out, so I ran too. The only difference was that I knew where I was going. I got out of the fields and into the corridors that crisscrossed the solid mass holding up the topmost of all Asgard’s layers. I ran purposefully past dozens of invader troopers, trying my very best to look like a man with an urgent mission, who must at all costs not be interrupted.
It worked like a dream for fully nine-tenths of the distance I had to cover, but then—in a corridor far too narrow to allow me to pass—I ran into a whole bunch of the enemy, including two men with such fancy decoration on their torsos that they had to outrank the poor sap whose uniform I’d stolen.
One of them—a big, bald man—barked an order at me. I don’t know what he said, but all I could do was stop and look foolish. There was nowhere to go—I couldn’t get past and as I half-turned, the man in charge barked again. I was grabbed, and pulled forward.
I could tell by the way he stared that the bald man had jumped to the right conclusion. My brow-ridges obviously weren’t prominent enough, given my inability to respond in any way whatsoever to his challenge. It probably helped that he’d been shipping humans down here to try and help his own boys out. He was quick to conclude that I was a member of the species Homo sapiens.
I had been feeling very good about my boldness until that moment—high on my own adrenalin, and pleased to take credit for my brilliance. Now, all of a sudden, I began to feel nauseous and extremely foolish.
The guns came out, and suddenly I was in the middle of a very hostile crowd. I stuck my empty hands up into the air, hoping fervently that they could recognise the symbol of surrender. I let them take the sidearm from my belt, having made no attempt to reach it myself.
There was nothing very gentle about the way they hustled me along. Stupid they might be, but they could put two and two together well enough to figure out who was responsible for all the alarms that were ringing. They had no way of knowing where I’d been headed, so Serne should be safe enough, but I was going to be treated as a saboteur.
I wondered, as they hustled me along, what they did to saboteurs. On good old Earth, I remembered, they used to shoot them.
14
Eventually, having removed my stolen uniform, they threw me into an ill-lit room with a table and a couple of chairs. They hadn’t handled me too roughly—somewhere along the line, I guess, they had found out that I hadn’t killed the man from whom I’d taken the uniform. They searched me, but I wasn’t carrying anything to give them a clue as to who I was or where I’d come from.
The questions finally began after an hour or so. I couldn’t tell whether the temporary chaos that I’d caused was still giving them trouble. A Tetron system wouldn’t have gone down in its entirety because of such a brutal assault, but I assumed that the Tetrax wouldn’t be keen to assist their unwelcome guests in the vexing task of putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. I knew that I would still be very unpopular, especially as I had struck at what they must consider a vital target.
Two men came in to do the interrogation—not because they intended to play good cop/bad cop, but because the one guy who could speak parole had to report everything back to the other, who didn’t. I didn’t mind that—it slowed things up. Despite the fact that the interrogation had to be conducted at a leisurely pace, though, the atmosphere was far from relaxed.
They obviously weren’t above a bit of calculated drama. Before they began, they threw the empty mud gun on the table, to show me that their clever little minds had at least taken step one in figuring out who I was, what I’d done, and to whom.
“What is your name?” asked the parole-speaker. He was about my age and height, with pale skin, very blond hair, and weak blue eyes. His companion was older, with white hair, but his eyes were a darker blue. I’d never seen Earth’s sea or its sky except on video, but I began thinking of them nevertheless as the man with sea-blue eyes and the man with sky-blue eyes. Otherwise, they might have been brothers.
“Jack Martin,” I replied, almost without thinking.
“And where do you live?”
“I used to live in a singlestack in the third sector, but I haven’t been home in a while.”
“Where have you been?”
“Down here. I figured after the tanks rolled in that I’d hide out.”
They both looked at me solemnly, but they didn’t immediately call me a liar.
“What is your job?” asked Sky-blue.
“I used to be a scavenger—I used to go down into levels three and four, hunting for artefacts. The bottom seems to have dropped out of the market, though. I don’t suppose you’ll be maintaining the Co-ordinated Research Establishment now that you’re in charge.”