After a brief engagement, Ohm leaped back, transferred the rapier to his right hand to confuse Mudge, attacked, was beaten back, was nicked in the shoulder, and transferred the rapier to his left hand. Mudge attacked. Ohm parried with a slight movement of the bell guard, deflecting Mudge's point. At the same time, Ohm directed his point so that Mudge, who kept moving forward, received the point in his right forearm. It slid under the ulna, or outer bone, and came out beyond it.
Ohm stepped back, yanking the sword from the wound. Mudge's hand opened. His rapier dropped. Ohm moved forward. Mudge staggered back into the figure of The Senator. It toppled over, and Mudge fell backward over it. He started to get up, but Ohm stepped up to him and ran his sword through Mudge's other forearm.
Hearing the sounds of boots behind him, Ohm whirled. He brought the tip of the sword up and then down into a defensive position, ready to meet Horvath's attack. He had turned so swiftly and whipped his rapier around so fast that it acted like a whip. A drop of blood was flicked from its end into Horvath's right eye, disorienting him for a split-second. That was enough for Ohm, who seemed to see everything as if it were in a slow-motion film. He noted every meaningful detail; he was prepared by years of training to take advantage of every weakness or off-balance of his opponent. His rapier beat Horvath's aside just far enough and long enough for him to send his blade through the man's thigh.
Horvath jumped back, Ohm's blade withdrawing from the flesh, followed by a gush of blood. Ohm attacked but could not for a moment get past Horvath's desperate but effective parries. Coolly, knowing that Horvath was weakening with every pump of blood, Ohm pressed him. Horvath, as was inevitable, bumped into a figure. The Soldier fell over, causing Horvath to fall onto the floor on his back. The Soldier knocked over The Oil Driller, which toppled The Insurance Salesperson, which knocked over The Mafia Gangster, which felled The Publisher, which toppled The Loan Shark, which knocked over The Marxist. The last in the domino series to crash to the floor was The Capitalist.
The wound in the thigh and the injury to his elbow in the fall seemed to put Horvath out of the combat. Ohm had thought that Mudge would be helpless, too, but the clomping of boots and a deep sobbing told him that that was not so. Howling, Ohm whirled just in time to meet Mudge's attack. It was weak, however, and especially ineffective because Mudge was using his left hand to hold the rapier. He was brave-Ohm had to give him credit for that-but he was also stupid. He did not have a chance. Ohm's point drove through Mudge's left shoulder, sticking out behind it for at least three inches.
Mudge crumpled. Ohm whirled again. But Horvath was not making another incredible attack. He was crawling, groaning, trailing much blood, toward the elevator. Charlie watched him until he collapsed, face down, on the floor. His arms and legs moved, responding only partly to his will to get up and go.
Ohm turned and walked, breathing hard but feeling exultant, to Mudge. The man sat on the floor, holding his shoulders with his hands and glaring at Ohm.
"You were lucky, you bastard!"
"Don't whine," Ohm said, grinning. "Now ... I want the star that opens the door to Immerman's apartment."
"I don't have it!"
"Just how were you planning to get back into the place?" Ohm said. "Come on. Hand it over, or I'll kill you and search your clothes."
"You'll never get away with this," Mudge said. "You can't outrun us, and you know that."
"So what am I supposed to do? Go along meekly to the execution? Hand it over! Now!"
Mudge let loose of his shoulder, which pumped blood, felt in the pocket of his splendid coat, and held out a disc-star attached to a long chain. Ohm took it and said, "This had better be the right one."
He had to act swiftly but was unable to do so because the two men could not carry Snick for him. He rejected the idea of transporting her himself at the same time that he went with the men. Though wounded badly-Horvath was becoming gray- they could still be dangerous. He would have to leave Snick here while he took care of the men.
As it was, he had to drag the now near-unconscious Horvath into the elevator cage and then support Mudge into it. When the two were lying on the floor, Ohm took the cage up to the top level. The star admitted him into the end of the apartment opposite that which he had entered that morning. Fortunately, the stoner room was close to this end. There were only two cyl inders, which forced him to prop Horvath, the closest to dying, into one first. He turned the power on at the switchboard behind a panel, reluctantly revealed by Mudge. Then he shoved Mudge into the other one. The man had enough blood and spirit left to spit in his face before Ohm could close the door. A few seconds later, Ohm dragged Mudge's stiff and heavy form out. He returned to the elevator and, in three minutes, had Snick into the apartment. After he had put her into a cylinder, he turned the power on. He opened the cylinder door and dragged her out onto the floor. After laying her down, he felt for her pulse. It was fluttering weakly, but it was there.
He stripped her and looked for wounds. Though he could find none, he knew that that did not mean that she might not be dying. She could have been injected with a slow poison as insurance that, if she were found, she would die shortly after being destoned. Or she might have been given an overdose of an anesthetic. Whatever had been done to her, she should go to a hospital immediately. He could not get her to one without putting himself in danger, and he did not want to call in. He had to have plenty of time to get away from the Tower.
He put her back into the cylinder and stoned her. After looking through the apartment, he found a compacter and jammed her clothes into that. Then he dragged her to the elevator and went down with her to the level that exhibited ancient sea creatures. One of these was a gigantic carnivorous whale which was frozen in the act of shooting out of the sea. Its enormous and open toothed mouth was a few feet below the level of the fence by the spiraling escalator.
Puffing, Ohm hauled her to the railing and balanced her stiff body on it, her head pointing-inward toward the now quiet sea.
"In a way, Snick," he said, "you've been my Jonah."
He laughed hysterically, the echoes bouncing back from the far walls of the Tower. When he had managed to get control of himself, he said, gasping, "I'm doing this because you're a human being and because Ijust won't murder. To hell with the greater good!"
He tilted her and then shoved. She slid over the railing and fell into the mouth of the whale and into its belly.
"They'll find you someday," he said, sobbing. "By then by then ..
No matter what happened to him by then, he would not regret having saved her. He would pay whatever price was required.
Sunday-World
VARIETY, Second Month of the Year
D6-W1 (Day-Six, Week-One)
Chapter 27
Thomas Tu Zurvan, "Father Tom," priest unlicensed by the government, licensed by God, awoke. He did not curse, though most men would have done so. He, who never drank liquor, had a hell of a hangover. (How else describe a hangover than as a "hell"?) Saturday's sinner had escaped punishment by passing on his headache to Sunday's saint. Father Tom did not mind. He gloried in the pain perhaps too much. His shoulders were big enough to bear the bad karma of others, and so was his head.