She whirled as one stone clicked against another and she made out the figure running toward her, crouched, knuckles almost touching the littered ground. In alarm rather than through any desire to kill she tugged on the trigger. The weapon made a brittle crackling sound and the figure fell, rolled almost to her feet.
She stood still for a long time, then risked shining the small flash on it. It was a man with a tangle of dark beard. His open eyes looked up at the distant stars and his mouth was open. She saw, in the hollow of his throat, the pool of blood where the tiny slug had gone in.
She clicked out the light, backed away, sank to her knees and began to weep.
In the end she decided to leave the dead city, to try to find a hiding place among less alien people.
She stood up with resolution, and turned directly into the arms of a man who towered over her.
He tore the gun out of her hand and when she screamed he clapped a harsh hand over her mouth. Her teeth met in his flesh and he cursed softly. The world exploded around her in darting fire and she was dimly conscious of being lifted off her feet.
She fought her way up out of untold depths to a consciousness of hard stone against her hips and shoulders. Damp stone. When she opened her eyes the flicker of oil lamps threw needles deep into her throbbing brain.
It was a long room, damp and windowless, and she knew it was far underground.
Her eyes slowly adjusted and she saw that there were four men at a crude table, another one on a bench against the far wall. A ragged girl with a white broken face leaned against the wall near the man who sat on the bench. She sang in a low, harsh voice, accompanying herself on a small stringed instrument. She stared at Ellen Morrit and her eyes were vacant and dead.
A much older woman squatted ten feet away, spooning a dark substance out of a rusty tin, smacking withered lips with each mouthful.
The men were rough, ragged, bearded and noisy. There was a lamp on the table, and several bottles and a greasy deck of cards.
One of them looked toward her, threw his cards down, got up and swaggered over. “Awake, eh? Come and meet the people.”
He grabbed her wrist, pulled her to her feet, steadied her when she would have fallen.
He held her in his big arm, turned to the others and said loudly, “Now who calls James unlucky? A gun and a girl, all in the same night.”
The old woman cackled. “When Thomas finds out maybe he’ll let you keep the gun.”
The man spat on the floor. “Now there’s reason for standing up to Thomas, woman.” He took Ellen roughly by the shoulders and spun her completely around. “Look at her! Meat on her bones. Soft hands. None of your leather-faced women, aye Janey?”
The dark girl cursed him, without bitterness.
James chuckled and pinched Ellen’s cheek. “Ah, you’re a great rarity here in the dead city, girl. We get the murderous ones, and the ones that have lived hard. None like you. Not for a long time.”
“Take me to Thomas,” Ellen said, trying to make her voice strong.
He scowled. “What would you know of Thomas?”
She lifted her chin. In this case she would try to forsake the devil she knew for the devil she didn’t. “He expects me.”
James shook his head dolefully from side to side. “Now just think of that! Thomas just upped and told you to come on in here and find him, did he?”
He pushed her back toward the corner, walked to the table and pulled a slight man up off his chair. “Bobby, you run along over and see Thomas and tell him that he has a lady friend waiting here for him. Be quick, boy!”
Bobby gave Ellen a quick, frightened look and left. The old woman threw the tin aside. It rolled across the floor, spewing out the remainder of its contents. She scuttled out into the night.
Ellen stayed where she was. The rest of them moved, by unspoken consent, down to the far end of the big room. James took from his belt a gun she recognized as her own. He slid out the clip and checked the shells, snapped it back in.
He then flattened himself against the wall beside the arched doorway. Through the doorway Ellen could see damp stairs leading up.
Peter Lucas went deeper into the dead city. He knew that before the night was over the patrols would be out. The car would be found. They would be coming in after him. There might not be much time. It was important to locate someone who knew the terrain.
Coarse growth grew so high as to brush his face. He tried to force his way into it, and had to retrace his steps. His eyes were getting used to the starlight. He could make out the dim outlines of the buildings.
A stone rattled and someone ran off into the distance. He shouted after the sound, his voice startlingly loud in the silence. There was no answer.
He started violently as the shot sounded. It was near at hand. Very near. And yet it had an odd, hollow, booming quality.
He moved in what he thought was the right direction. Ten feet, twenty feet. Another shot came and another. He turned to the right and his outstretched hand touched a rough wall. He moved along the wall and saw a glow of light, a low arched doorway, half filled with rubble. He scrambled in. The light was stronger.
He went cautiously down the wide flight of stone stairs to a landing. The stairs cut back. He went down the second flight.
The stairs went through an arched doorway and into a room with a stone floor. He could see the huge stones of the floor, the mortar between them. The light was dim and it flickered. Oil lamps, he thought. Primitive.
A rough voice spoke words that he didn’t understand. He stood in indecision, the device aimed and ready.
There was the sound of a heavy blow, a low moan of pain. Lucas decided that whoever was in the room was too busy to notice him. He moved quickly down the rest of the stairs, passed through the arch and moved to one side, his shoulders against the stone wall.
A dark girl sang and looked at him with dull interest. Bearded men in a far end of the long room turned and stared, wary and taut in their attitudes.
But a vast, pale, clean-shaven man with hands like hams and a massive belly merely looked up at him and said, “Be with you in a moment, friend.”
A husky man lay on the floor. His eyes were agonized. A few feet away lay a .22 pistol with a long barrel. As the huge man bent over the figure on the floor, Lucas saw the raw, bloody streak straight across the back of his bull neck.
The big man pulled the prostrate man to his feet, steadied him and smashed him full in the face with a huge right fist. The man fell heavily and the big man kicked him in the side with all his strength, sliding him several feet along the stone floor.
Grunting, the big man picked up the automatic, grinned again at Lucas and said, “The fool tried to kill me. Something about a woman.” He giggled, a curiously womanish sound. “He was going to drill me through the head as I came in, but I came in too fast. Always come into a room fast, boy, or don’t come in at all. Who are you?”
Lucas noted that though the man held the automatic negligently, the thin barrel was pointed at Lucas’ middle.
With a small warm sound, Ellen Morrit came from the far corner, ran hard against Lucas’ chest, her body shaking, her eyes panic-stricken.
“Yours, eh?” the big man said. “I’m boss man around here. I may make you prove you can hang onto her. Who are you?”
“Lucas. I escaped tonight from the Bureau of Improvement.”
There was an angry muttering from the men at the end of the room. The girl stopped her drab and monotonous song and merely stared.
The big man said, “We don’t want your sort here.”
Not even here, Peter thought. Not even in the dead city. When they can feel superior to no one else on earth, they still have contempt for us.