Taking advantage of the confusion, Sandoval turned to look directly at his captor. “Vas ist…” he began, confused, and she stopped him. She did not remember him consciously, but something came from deep inside her.
“Moosic,” she responded, and fired. He flared as had the creature, again blinding her. She smelled him, though, and dropped to the ground just in case there was any more danger.
Back in the alley, Eric Benoni started to take aim at the figure who had pretended to be Marx, but some sixth sense warned him and, instead, he quickly pressed his “Home” key and vanished.
Herb, dressed in period clothes and with a false set of whiskers, ran to the alley, but he only met Faouma there. “Missed the bastard by a hair,” she grunted and cursed.
Herb gave her a sharp look. “Neumann’s already on the run. Let’s collect our own and get the hell out of here. This was much too easy.”
Holger Neumann was in a state of panic and confusion, but he at least had seen the job done. All he wanted now was out, out and home—but would they let him?
The ancient city had become now a nightmarish place, a surreal horror whose shadows reached out and threatened him at every turn. Behind, and possibly from above him, he thought he heard the sounds of pursuit.
The central square of Trier looked eerie and threatening in the early morning hours, lit only by a few huge candles in the street lights, their flickering casting ever-changing and monstrous shadows on the cobblestones and the sides of the now dark buildings.
Moosic gave the square a professional going-over between midnight and one, noting the rounds of the local policeman. He wanted no repetition of the debacle in London. This time there would be one target and one target only, and that target would be taken out as soon as positively identified. That should not be too difficult, he thought, if he could shoot straight. He already knew the policeman, and he knew Marx, so anyone else likely to be here at two almost had to be his quarry.
The hotel door was locked, of course, at this time of night, but he’d made certain he had a key, telling the proprietor earlier that he had a very late party. He fumbled in panic with the key, finally got it in and shut the door behind him. He almost ran up the stairs until he realized that he hadn’t his room key, went back quickly and got it from behind the desk, then bounded up the stairs not caring whom he awakened. He unlocked the door and went immediately to the steamer trunk, where he’d locked the suit. Fumbling for yet another key in the darkness, he dropped it twice and had to calm himself down before he could find it again and fit it in the large brass lock.
A scratching sound caused him to turn towards the window, and in a split second he saw the horrible face of the second gargoyle framed in it, gun coming up. He picked up his own and fired, and the thing was gone. He didn’t know if he’d hit it or not.
He kicked off his shoes and got into the suit, which fit his new frame rather well. Placing the gun so he could easily pick it up again, he put on the helmet as he heard noises and shouting both in the hall and outside. The noise had apparently roused half the town.
He got the helmet on and sealed it, then adjusted the small pentometers for across-the-board zeroes, then pressed “Activate.”
Inside the helmet, a little message flashed saying, “Insufficient power.”
He cursed. The dials still said ninety-five percent power reserve. That should be more than enough to get back home! He tried again, and again the little words flashed inside the suit.
He reached up to adjust them again, and at that moment another, perhaps the same, grinning black monstrosity showed in the window. He spun the damned controls and activated.
The creature got off a shot, but where its target had been, there was suddenly nothing at all but an empty room. Behind, there were loud yells and curses and somebody shouted, “Break the door down!”
Satisfied that the proper result had been obtained, Lucia ducked back from the window and pulled off the grotesque mask she had been wearing, then moved swiftly along the ledge and around a corner, out of sight of those breaking into the room. There, before this had even started, she’d anchored her line, and now she slid down it to the street level, gave a yank, and it fell out, then neatly reeled itself into a device in her hands which she had clipped to the belt.
“All in, all in,” she heard Herb’s tinny voice on the belt communicator, which should have been the signal for her to jump back to home, but she did not. Like Herb, she felt it had been too easy.
Back in the square, Herb and Faouma ran to assist Dawn, who got up unsteadily. She could see again, although it was still somewhat dim. In the distance, they could hear footsteps running towards the square, and in a few of the upper floors of buildings facing it, lights were burning now.
Herb gestured to a dark street nearby. “Back in there, quick! We’ll jump as soon as we’re able!” The two women followed him without another word.
They got about a block from the square when a woman’s voice they had not heard before said, in the accented manner of time travelers and in English, “Freeze! Just where you are!”
They stopped, and all three fingered their guns nervously, looking for a chance.
“There are savants on all sides of you,” the woman warned. “You will drop your weapons and raise your hands—now!”
“She’s right,” Dawn whispered. “I can see two of them just ahead on either side.”
They dropped their weapons.
It was too dark for normal sight in the tiny street, but Dawn’s special vision made her out. Medium build, dark hair; good build, but an ugly face. It was one she’d never seen before. The mystery woman did, however, wear a time belt.
“Now, just unhitch your belts and let them drop; then kick them away from you,” the woman instructed. “Remember—the savants will shoot at the first sign of trouble.”
“Let ’em shoot, then,” Herb told her. “That way you don’t get the belts.” Faouma seemed in agreement. All Dawn could think of was that she would never see the kids again.
“Groak! Stun beam!” the woman ordered, and there was a loud flash of rays. Dawn, like the other two, braced for it, but when it didn’t come, she just dropped to the street anyway. The ray, of course, had blinded her again. Shots crackled in the air, and she felt half her body burn and then go numb.
Herb practically fell over her, but both he and Faouma had wasted no time in dropping, rolling, and coming up with their weapons. Rays crackled all over the tiny street, and there were sounds of stirring from inside the buildings. Suddenly, it was over, and Lucia from one side and Nikita from the other ran to them.
“You all right?” Lucia asked Herb, but he was lying on his side, fumbling with his belt.
“Everybody—jump now! Home! Don’t wait! Lucia— punch out anybody who can’t do it themselves, dead or alive!”
Somebody ran to Dawn, punched in a set of numbers, and pressed the “Home” key.
She was falling downtime.
“The plot all along,” Chung Lind commented, “was the capture of the squad’s belts, that’s clear. And in spite of knowing we were set up, we almost fell into that trap.”
“My fault,” Herb said flatly. “I just got overconfident, that’s all. They must have been on the rooftops around the square all the time. As soon as we picked an exit route, they moved to seal off the far end of that street. It was a clever setup, I got to admit. If Nicky and Lucia had obeyed orders and jumped, we’d all be happy little citizens of Prussia right now.”