The guard realized his error—too late.
Rick released Gedge and was through the door in one long bound. “Don’t even twitch, sonny!” he said darkly, leveling his blaster at the startled guard.
The others swarmed through the doors after him, Hosato roughly dragging Gedge with them. Rick relieved the guard of his blaster as Sasha turned her attention to the man in the jumpsuit.
“I’ll ask once,” she announced. “Who or what are you?”
“I’m a… a taxi driver. That’s all!” the man stammered. “I—. I’ve got a ship standing by to fly some bigwigs to a conference on Theta. I’m nobody important. Really!”
Sasha laughed mirthlessly. “Nobody important. Hey, Hosato. It looks like you win. We’ve got a ship.”
“It’s about time we got lucky,” Hosato growled. “Where is it?”
A shrill beeping interrupted them. A communications light was flashing on the wall panel.
“Answer it!” Rick ordered, gesturing at the guard with his blaster.
The man licked his lips nervously, then complied. “Spaceport!” he said into the speaker.
“Seal the spaceport,” came a voice over the speaker. “Possible sabotage attempt in progress. They’ve got the chief as a hostage.”
The guard’s eyes darted to the group in front of him before replying. “Code Victor acknowledged.”
Rick sprang forward to shove him away from the panel, but it was too late. There wasn’t a member of their party that doubted the fact the guard’s signal had pinpointed their location.
“That tears it,” Hosato snarled. “Sasha. Is there any way they can stop our takeoff?”
“Only through the doors there,” she answered briskly.
“Well, we’ll just have to see how good their security system really is. You. Where is your ship and what kind is it?”
“Pad Eight,” the man responded. “It’s a Starblazer II. I Luxury Cruiser.”
“You’d better not be lying,” Sasha snarled.
“It’s there. So help me God. I don’t want any trouble.” The man seemed genuinely terror-struck.
“I can fly it,” Rick volunteered.
“Okay, check it out, fast!” Hosato ordered.
“Cover him, James,” Rick snapped, indicating the guard, and was gone, sprinting down the corridor.
“Gedge!” Hosato said, turning to the security chief. “Fm letting you go—”
“Wait a minute!” Sasha interrupted.
“Shut up, Sasha. Do you hear me, Gedge. I’m letting you go. The men we killed got in the way, but I don’t kill people for convenience. Listen to me, Gedge. Convince those bastards about what’s going on at Mc-. Crae. We weren’t lying. Convince them, Gedge, or on my family’s honor I’ll come back here and kill you, and all the guards in the galaxy won’t be able to stop me!”
“It’s here!” came Rick’s call from down the corridor.
“All right, get him out of here,” Hosato ordered, shoving Gedge into the arms of the waiting security guard. “And move it, before I change my mind. You. The pilot. You too. Move it!”
The pilot needed no additional urging as he hastily followed the others through the doors.
Hosato slammed his hand against the door controls, and they hissed shut, sealing the spaceport against their pursuers.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said, starting down the corridor after Rick.
“Hosato,” Sasha said, overtaking him. “Sometime we’re going to have a few words about letting Gedge go.”
“It’s the only chance we have of convincing Raven-steel—”
They both spun at the sound of blasters behind them. The hounds were trying to burn their way through the airlocks.
“Come on, James!” Hosato urged, and the three of them sprinted for the ship.
“You can’t count on Ravensteel to do anything,” Sasha insisted. “Even if they believe Gedge, which is doubtful, they won’t lift a finger. Why should they?”
Hosato sighed. This argument had been going nonstop since they lifted off from Grunbecker’s Planet. He thought it was getting circular, but couldn’t be sure. Lack of sleep was making his mind fuzzy.
“Look, Sasha—” he began wearily.
“Say, I hate to interrupt,” Rick interrupted through the open door to the pilot’s compartment, “but where are we going?”
“What was that, Rick?” Hosato blinked.
“I said, where are we going. I want to get this baby on autopilot and join the brawl. I’ve got a couple thoughts on the subject myself.”
Hosato hadn’t really given any thought to their destination. His main concern had been getting away from Griinbecker’s. Still, everyone seemed to be looking at him for a decision.
“I don’t know,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Pick the nearest free spaceport. We can go our separate ways from there.”
“Just like that!” Sasha shouted. “Go our separate ways. Just turn our backs on the whole mess and pretend it never happened.”
“What do you want us to do?” Hosato exploded. “We barely got out of there alive. If your whole security setup and guard force can’t stop 'em, we sure can’t.”
“If we don’t, who will?” She glared back.
“Hold your fire. I’m coming in!” Rick popped in from the pilot’s compartment and stood grinning at them.
“Now that I’ve successfully set foot in no-man’s land, there are a few observations I’d like to make.” He began to pace up and down the lounge, adopting the mock characteristics of a lecturer.
“First of all, Sasha’s right when she says we have to do something. The robots that massacred everybody at Mc. Crae have to be stopped, and we can’t rely on anyone else to do the job. Remember, we didn’t believe what was happening ourselves until it was too late and we were in the middle of it. I don’t see any way anyone else is going to be convinced of the danger until it threatens them directly, and then again it will be too late.”
The mechanic paused and pointed a dramatic finger at Hosato.
“On the other hand, our ace superspy here is right, too. There isn’t much we can do.”
“Then we’re at an impasse,” Hosato observed. “We have to do something, but we can’t do anything. The odds are against us.”
“I thought you were supposed to be some kind of expert at beating long odds,” Sasha probed. “Hell, a while back you were all set to take on that same airtight security system single-handed.”
“And now, between Sasha and me, you’ve got a ready pool of information as to what the security layout is and what makes the machines tick,” Rick added.
Hosato stared at the floor. The others remained silent, letting him turn the facts over in his mind. Finally he sighed and shook his head.
“No. It still won’t work.” he announced. “There’s one big problem no one seems ready to face. We don’t know what happened back there. Until we know what went wrong, we don’t know for sure what we’re up against. Without that little piece of information, any plan for a counterattack would be suicidal.”
The trio sat silently, each lost in their own thoughts.
“Wait a minute!” Rick exclaimed.
“What is it?” Sasha asked, but the mechanic was gone, disappearing through the door of the pilot’s compartment.
He was back in a moment, brandishing a sheaf of papers in his hand.
“Do either of you speak computer?” he asked eagerly.
He dumped the papers in Hosato’s lap, who bent to examine them. The papers were covered with what appeared to be typed mathematical notations interspersed with word fragments.
“What are they?” he asked.
“You should know,” Rick replied smugly. “You gave 'em to me, back at the crawler bay, when you carried Sasha in.”
“And you’ve been carrying them all this time?”
Hosato vaguely remembered the incident, but was astounded the mechanic still had the documents in his possession after all they had been through.
“Yep,” Rick announced proudly. “Had 'em stashed inside my shirt. The guards who searched me at Ravensteel looked at 'em but didn’t figure they were important enough to take away from me.”