The Main Control was an awesome array of consoles studded with switches and dials and readouts, a computerized technological paradise that would have made Lord Leighton turn pea-soup-green with envy. But Blade had no time to appreciate or analyze what he had come to destroy.
First, turn off the Pi-field. The panel with the master switches was squarely in the center of the complex, with a hard plastic chair in front of it for those rare occasions when the Ice Master had actually needed to sit down and look at the key to his stronghold. Blade strode over to it, stared for a moment at the winking fights. Then he reached out and systematically began flipping every switch and pressing every button. The lights began to die, and then from one second to the next there was a subtle change in the air, a change that seemed to trickle down on to Blade's skin like a thin liquid and make every hair on his body cling more closely. He knew that something important had gone-he would have to gamble that it was the Pi-field. And the second after that, half a dozen things happened at once.
A clutch of Menel guards burst into the room and dashed at him. He avoided their rush by a four-foot vertical leap to the top of one of the consoles, and batted the first two swords to reach for him away with his truncheon. With his right hand he reached behind him and began pulling bombs out of the pouch and setting the fuses with thumb and forefinger, then pitching them in long arcs through the open door with the sign Main Core above it. Exactly what was in there Blade had no real idea, but he found it hard to believe that anything would survive completely unscathed ten of those little bombs exploding in a confined space.
Now the bag was empty and he threw it in a guard's face and leaped down after it, smashing the man to the ground with his truncheon. The guards drew back to form another cordon around the head of the stairs as the first of the Menel appeared, with others beyond it, but Blade saw the Menel stop, turn, and retreat a few feet, almost to the edge of the top step. It had no time to go farther before the first of the bombs went off.
In the confined space the explosion was terrific and the noise beyond belief. Blade was never sure afterward how he or anybody else in the chamber escaped being pulped into jam by the concussion. That the bombs went off separately rather than all together perhaps was their only salvation. Flying fragments screamed into the room like demented banshees and chopped down guards right and left. Blade dove behind a console at the first blast, huddled there while the debris from the remaining nine slammed into the metal with harsh clangs, then vaulted over the console and beaded for the stairs. From within the Main Core room he could hear satisfactory sizzling and hissing noises like a gigantic fireworks display.
Those guards not too badly wounded seemed too stunned to resist as Blade brushed past them: Then he reached the first of the Menel. The creature's companions had escaped the worst of the blast. In fact, as Blade looked down the stairs he could see them and their guards retreating downward as fast as their respective gaits could take them. But this Menel had been fully exposed to the blast. It lay on its side, motionless, one limb half-severed and oozing a sticky sap-like green fluid. Blade was about to leap over it as he would have leaped over a fallen tree, then remembered.
This was an intelligent being. It might be dead. But it might not be, and if it wasn't, it needed help. He turned back to the chamber and began ripping the shorts off the bodies of the guards and tearing the tough plastic-like material into strips. These he bound around the half-severed limb until the flow of fluid stopped, then used a broken spear as a splint tied on with several more strips to hold the limb rigid. Then with exquisite care he picked the creature up. It weighed too much for him to carry alone-nearly three hundred pounds-so he snapped an order at one of the guards. The man's conditioning to serve the Menel was holding; he dutifully came over and picked up the «foot» end of the creature. Holding it between them like a misshapen log of wood, they descended the stairs.
Reaching the bottom, Blade saw that Menel and Menel guards alike had vanished; the chamber was empty except for dead bodies and a rearguard of raiders under Stramod's command, His eyes widened as he saw Blade appear with his burden, but he said nothing. Blade and the guard carried the Menel over to the shaft and slid it over the edge. It plunged out of sight like a rock; Blade hoped it would be detected and slowed before it hit bottom. But he could only hope. He had done all he could do for it; now it was time to get himself and his own people out of here.
Stramod came up to him as he fell in with the rearguard and said in a half-grunt:
«Why?»
«You know.»
«I suppose I do. I hope it affects the way they see us. Even if it does not-thank you. Our consciences will»
«Never mind your consciences for now,» said Blade briskly. «I think we'd better move fast and save our necks. I started something in that-«and from above in the Main Core an enormous sizzling explosion, like fifty thousand pieces of bacon dropped at once into a giant frying pan, saved him the need for further explanation. Stramod nodded and the rearguard moved out at a brisk trot to the stairway, then turned in and began the long climb.
They were halfway to the lift chamber when the first real explosion came-a tremendous thudding jar that rumbled through the very fabric of the stronghold and seemed to make Blade's bones bounce and vibrate within his body. The forces let loose in the Main Core were on the march now; it was anyone's guess whether they would devour the stronghold before the flier and its load could get clear. Though his breath was coming searing hot, as though he were breathing in hot pepper, Blade quickened his pace and urged the others on faster still.
They came up to the elevator level almost at a dead run, sprinted across the chamber to where the guarding party there was herding the last handful of slaves on to the platform, and Blade ordered them off. So far whatever force powered the elevator was still working, but Blade would not want to risk its dying while they were halfway up the shaft, leaving them to fall hundreds of feet to certain death. Instead he led both parties back toward the stairs, setting a pace that made his breath burn hotter still, his leg muscles feel like rotted rubber bands stretched tight, and some of the weaker slaves falling out entirely. He would have liked to bring them all out, but now things were at the point where they couldn't delay even seconds for stragglers.
They reached the stairs and started up, Blade's legs now pumping like machines, the slaves holding their own as the prospect of freedom seemed to give them a second wind. Up, up, up-halfway up there was another explosion, the lights dying, but Stramod switched on a handlamp that gave enough light to keep people from missing their footing. On and on upward, the rasping breath of fifty men and women now sounding loud enough to raise echoes above and beyond their pounding footsteps.
The surface at last-light searing through the door, reflected off ice and off the great silver bulk of the flier visible beyond, with its hatches standing open and the last few people of the previous load disappearing into the black interior. The searing light and searing cold brought the slaves and Girls to a stop for a moment, but Stramod was urging them on, waving his arms and his truncheon and blistering the air with curses. The cold struck at Blade's toiling lungs, bringing him to a stop for a moment as he leaned against the wall for support. By the time he recovered only Stramod was left inside the-stronghold; together they ran out across the ice and up the folding stairway into the flier.