Tilly Trice went outside again and said shrilly, “Hey, something’s wrong in here. The corporal’s sick. He’s got some kind of attack.”
The remaining two guards made a beeline for the door, the pseudo-knowledgeable one saying, “I always thought he looked like he had a bad ticker, or something.”
They pushed on through, their guns comfortably bolstered, their minds free of suspicion—and ran into the hands of two so-called Alpha Scouts apiece. They were grabbed efficiently, and Comb’s sap thudded once again.
But then with a roar and burst of brawn, the second bashed his two slightly-built assailants together, threw them aside, and was down the corridor, running hard, at the same time tearing at his handgun, opening his mouth to shout a warning.
Tilly called, “Bernal!”
The arrow caught the fleeing guard in the upper spine and he was dead before his body hit the marble flooring.
Tilly snapped, “All right, Combs, Bernal, Altshuler, Zimmerman. You and your men, double time. You know your posts. Take them! Gonzales, stick close to me. Let’s go!”
On the run, they sped down corridors that seemed no strangers to them. On the several occasions that they came against Surety guards, or civilian-dressed employees of the Commissariat, the reaction of the others was such that the critical initial seconds of contact were their undoing. The halls were littered with Alphaland citizenry, either battered to insensibility or transfixed with lethal arrows.
Tilly finally stopped. “This is it, isn’t it, Manuel?”
“Should be. Let’s hurry.” The other looked like a kid in no more than his late teens, unless inspection came close enough to take in the wrinkles in his forehead, the depth of intelligence in his eyes. He wore heavy contact lenses. Of them all, he alone seemed nervous, as though the pace of action was unaccustomed.
Tilly whispered urgently, “On your toes, boys. There’ll be action here.”
She banged her slight shoulder against the massive door.
Beyond, two Surety men were hurrying toward them, one with gun in hand, the other in the process of drawing.
An arrow winged its deadliness past Tilly, missing her by less than six inches. It sped halfway through the lead guard’s throat, projecting its bloodiness behind, as the man crumbled forward to his knees, and then, gurgling, flat on his face, his feet drumming agony against the heavy carpeting.
The second guard got one bolt off before being transfixed with three more arrows, then he too went down.
“All right,” Tilly said. “Gonzales, it’s all yours. Fast now. We’ll hold until you’re through. But according to your speed, or lack of it, we’ll get out of here or not.”
Manuel Gonzales unslung a purse-like affair from over his shoulder. He put it down carefully on a heavy table and began hurriedly bringing its contents forth, to lay them in semi-orderly rows on the table. His mouth was dry and he licked his lips often, with little result.
He held an extension cord over his shoulder without looking to see who might take it. “Plug this in,” he said, his voice high. He cleared his throat. His hands were flying.
Tilly was standing in the middle of the large room, her bow in hand, an arrow on the string.
Combs, cool as winter wind, came to the assistance of Manuel Gonzales, who was occasionally fumbling his gadgets.
Combs said, soothingly, “How’s it work, Manuel?”
Gonzales spoke, even as he tinkered. “It discharges a condenser-bank through a small coil, generating a very powerful magnetic pulse; then a charge of high explosive is rigged to implode the resultant magnetic field to produce an empire-size flux density. Just a single two-microsecond pulse—but it makes every computer-magnetic-memory within half a mile ‘forget’ all its information and the data stored in the machine at the time, necessitating complete reprogramming. It also whips most of the magnetic tape around, lousing up records no end.”
Admiration in his voice, Combs said, “You lost me somewhere back there, but it sounds swell. We should’ve tried to get it into the War Ministry.”
Tilly, still standing, arrow still on string, said, “No. Finance is even better. You don’t fight wars with soldiers anymore, not primarily.”
Altshuler came in from the corridor, his face strained. He said, “Zimmerman copped one. That single bolt the guard got off.”
Tilly looked at the two technicians. “Try to hurry it, fellows.” She went out into the hall.
Several of the so-called Alpha Scouts, their bows at the ready, were standing guard. Two of them were bent over Zimmerman, who was propped up in a sitting position against the wall. His face was unnaturally pale and blood had already soaked through the improvised bandages.
“How bad is it, Zim?” Tilly asked.
“It’s pretty bad,” he grated. “I’ll never make it.”
Tilly told those working on him, “When we run for it, you two carry him. The rest of us will cover.”
Zimmerman shook his head. “It’d jeopardize everybody. Besides, if they got me, they’d stick me under Scop and I’d betray half our people in town. I’m expendable, Till. Finish me.”
Her lips thinned back over her artificial buckteeth. She stared down at him.
Finally she said, “Anything you want passed back home?”
He shook his head again. “No. I said my famous last words when I left to come over here. I knew there was fat chance of ever coming back.”
“All right,” she said, so low as hardly to be heard. Her eyes went suddenly to Bernal. “It’s an order, Bernal!”
An arrow smashed the heart of the fallen guerrilla.
Gonzales and Combs came running from the inner room.
“Let’s go!” Combs yelled.
They dashed down the corridors, back the way they had come. Their other groups merged with them as they progressed, coming on the run from the different points to which they had scattered when first entering the building. Three were missing, besides Zimmerman.
They sped out the entry through which they had come a scant ten minutes earlier, and down the stone steps. There were shouts and sounds of confusion behind them, but none bothered to turn head to check the pursuit.
At the bottom of the steps, a supposed tourist hover-bus edged up to the curb, even as they approached. They piled into it—on the surface a gang of teen-agers, costumed as though some sort of club.
Combs was last, almost missing the bus as it took off, being pulled in the door at the last moment by Tilly Trice.
“Thanks,” he puffed. “Remind me to marry you someday. Like your style.”
“Tu, tu, tu,” she told him. “Already spoken for.”
He looked at her sourly. “Oh, too bad.”
The bus sped around a corner, barreled at full speed down a boulevard, spun around another corner.
Altshuler, at the rear, called, “Uh-oh, some kind of Surety car.”
Tilly yelled back to him, “Noise makes no difference now. Take it!
A moment later a shattering blast tore up the street behind them.
Altshuler looked admiringly down at a small grenade in his hand, the twin of the one he had just thrown. “Zen!” he said. “Ordinance is really turning them out these days.”
Tilly clucked. “Watch your patriotism, Alt. Those aren’t the products of our ordinance plants. They were liberated from a local armory. How d’ya think we’d ever get such equipment over the borders with the kind of security they have here?”
Chapter VI
Number One was doing his best to relax in the comforting presence of Pater Riggin. He sipped at a glass of amontillado, imported for his sole use from a far land once called Spain.
The Temple Monk said softly, “So the die is cast and there is no return.”