The fourth outlet was into a dark room. He looked out of the ventilation outlet, surveying the gray and brown and purple shadows until he was certain the place was empty. Then, moving as quietly as he could manage in his agitated state, he clambered from the shaft and dropped to the floor of the chamber. His feet made slapping sounds on the rock.
There was silence.
Now he had to try to decide how much the vacii knew. Did they realize where he had come from? Or did they think he was a trespassing human from this probability line? He could hope they had not yet realized the enormity of the situation, for if they hadn't there was yet a chance he could reach the projection room and get across to the basement where Lynda and the 810-40.04 waited.
But if they figured it out Well, there would be a heavy detachment waiting inside the projection room, none too happy about what he had done to the vacii prober operator and the twenty robots lined up for the invasion of his probability line. None too happy at all
Cautiously, he opened the door and looked up and down the corridor. It was mysteriously empty. He located the projection room and debated making a run for it. There was something about the hallway, though, that made the calm, the emptiness seem artificial.
After five minutes of intense staring which made his eyeballs feel as if they had been marinated in lighter fluid, he shrugged his shoulders and walked out of the room, leaving the door open behind in the event he had to make a quick break for cover. He walked along the hall, keeping against the wall, his pellet gas pistol ready. As he passed the opening to the stairwell, he was aware of motion out of the corner of his eye. He turned. It was a vacii.
No. Not a vacii. Two of them.
The first was raising a pistol. Salsbury fired from the hip and caught the alien in the chest. It slammed back against the steps and went down with a terribly vacant gaze in its red eyes. Then something connected with Salsbury's hand and knocked his gun arm above his head. The gas pellet pistol clattered across the corridor, out of reach. The second vacii, who had kicked it from Salsbury's hand, was keening loudly for aid.
Salsbury swung a roundhouse right with every ounce of strength he had in his specially crafted body, caught the vacii on its skinny neck and sent it tumbling loosely onto its dead companion. It gagged, shook its head, and tried to stand, its bony left hand pawing desperately at a black holster for a pistol much like that the first alien had aimed at Salsbury seconds earlier.
Salsbury raised his foot, kicked the alien's hand away from its gun butt. He could hear the wrist bones crunching under the impact and felt somewhat ill. The vacii screamed, fell against the wall and slid to the floor, sobbing and making wet noises with its sucker mouth, holding the limp wrist as if it were a dead friend.
As he turned back to the projection room, Salsbury saw a second detail of vacii-which had obviously been stationed at the far end of the corridor, hidden in the en-tranceway to a room-coming at a dead run, leaning forward as if a gale were blowing in the hall, hands either full of lethal looking hardware or groping wildly at holsters to obtain them. While he watched, almost frozen to the spot, the lead lizard fired. A burst of tiny needles studded the plaster of the archway next to which he stood. Something wet and yellow dripped from them.
Poison?
But that seemed a stupidly primitive weapon for such an advanced species. While he was searching for something to do, to get him out of the present mess, something struck a glancing, ringing blow against the back of his skull.
He weaved, almost went down, but fought against the sudden blackness. He turned to find the vacii whose wrist he had broken. While his attention had been diverted toward the oncoming guards, the alien had unholstered its weapon, had stood up despite the smashed wrist, had used the gun as a club in its good hand. Why it had not merely shot him, Salsbury could not guess. Perhaps the alien was still dazed by its wound. Now, as Salsbury watched, it thought of that and tried to change the gun around to a firing position. Salsbury hated to have to do something like this to such a spunky character, but he kicked out, snapping his shoe into the creature's good wrist. The gun flew, cracked against the wall, came apart in three pieces.
Salsbury leaped over him and started up the stairs in hopes he could find another room unused on the second floor and get back into the less dangerous grounds of the ventilation shafts.
When he reached the first landing and started up the second flight toward the floor above, he collided with another guard detail coming down. The vacii in the lead rounded the landing, looked surprised to see its quarry coming up, lurched and shouted something to those behind him. Salsbury reached forward, lifted the withered thing by the black, silver-studded harness it wore, and pitched it backwards, over his head, down the stairs he had just climbed.
The second vacii in the group fired its pistol.
Salsbury heard needles rain against the plaster behind him.
Then he had this creature by the harness too, lifted, turned, and threw it downward.
There was a group rising from below. The falling vacii struck their leader, knocked him down. Salsbury looked back to those above him, saw two more vacii prepared to shoot. He rushed forward, coming under their barrels, and tackled them, an arm around each pair of skinny legs. They went down like new-planted saplings in a hurricane.
The group below was recovering.
The vacii on Salsbury's right bounced its skull on the floor, moaned and was still. The other one, however, was going to be trouble. It got a leg between itself and Salsbury, kicked out and caught the man on the chin. Salsbury saw stars, rainbows, and pretty multicolored snow-flakes, then cleared his head with a monumental effort. He swung a fist, felt it jar against the sucker mouth, knew he was in the clear.
He clambered up the steps on his hands and knees, trying to gain his feet. On the next landing, he stood, looked backwards, and was just in time to see a spray of needles spinning lazily toward him.
They bit into his side, arm, and leg.
He turned, wheezing, and started up the steps again.
But someone above was pouring a thick brown fluid (maple syrup?) down onto him. He could hardly move his legs in the stuff. He could hardly breathe. Or think
The brown syrup grew darker and darker still.
Then it was black, speckled with thousands of stars of blue and white. Someone reached up and flicked off the switch. The stars faded like pinpoints of light on a thousand television screens, were gone. He let the nothingness envelop him.
CHAPTER 15
He was on a wide, flat and bitterly cold desert at midnight. There was a harsh white moon shining on the flat rocks and glistening in the sand. Then, behind him, he heard the keening, turned to run again. It was a wild ululating cry. He made it to the top of the rise, looked back. The first of the sucker-mouthed lizards came into view, then others. A hundred. A thousand. Hundreds of thousands and millions after that. A sea of alien faces. Then he began to scream-
He woke.
The reality was not much better than the nightmare. He was strapped firmly in a chair, his hands tied together with some plastic-covered wire that ensured they would remain together, a hasty handcuffing but an effective one. Behind him and to either side were vacii guards with their guns drawn. In front, another vacii paced. When it saw the flutter of Salsbury's eyelashes and realized he was awake, it slipped into the chair opposite him and stared with those mad crimson eyes.