"Only to cheer you up. The Fortress is becoming so terribly grim."
Homer nodded. He did not believe a word, of course. Dee was the Prince of Liars, and always oblique. He might indeed do some cheering up, but only as a means to an end.
Homer's suspicion was solidly grounded. His handicap betrayed him. Without vision he could not detect the evil Michael planned. Only on Dee's face was the wickedness obvious, and that for but an instant.
Dee had discovered Benjamin's Achilles' heel. He had gotten the information from the man's staunchest defender, his mother, simply by listening to her brag and worry.
"Would you like to get into the game, Homer? Benjamin is dueling. Maybe he'd give you a go."
"Duel a blind man? You're a fool, Dee."
"Oh, I'll help you. Here. Benjamin. Homer wants a try." Dee glanced over his shoulder. A droplet of sweat dribbled down one temple. Thurston's weapon still tracked him with deadly precision.
"Hell, why not?" Benjamin replied. "Come on, Homer. You'll probably do better than these clowns."
As was customary, the healthy stepped aside, condescending to allow the cripple his moment.
Glibly, smoothly, Dee talked Homer to his feet, placed a dueling knife in his hand, positioned him facing his twin. The gallery watched with amused smiles. Homer sensed their amusement. His temper soared.
"Count of three," Michael said, easing back, trying to place someone between himself and Thurston. "One... "
Benjamin, playing to his audience, presented his chest to Homer's blade. He could not be hurt. No known hand weapon could penetrate the protection of his armor.
"Two... "
Guided by Benjamin's breathing, Homer lunged. He wanted to knock Ben onto his showoff ass.
For a long moment after the drugged tip of the wooden blade slipped through armor proof against any metal there was absolute silence. The tableau became a freezeframe from an old-time movie. Then Benjamin and Homer screamed with one voice. Their psi forces locked. Their rage and pain reached out to envelop the Fortress. Benjamin folded slowly. Homer fainted, toppled onto Benjamin. His mind could not withstand the psi backwash from his twin. Women shrieked. Men shouted.
And as quietly as he had come to the blind brother, while even Thurston's attention was diverted, Michael Dee slipped away.
Pandemonium invaded the hall.
When Wulf arrived he found Thurston raging among a group of young officers trying to avenge Benjamin on Homer. The big man laid them out left and right while screaming for somebody to for God's sake get the twins down to Medical.
A man slipped around Thurston and, with the guilty wooden blade, as Homer recovered consciousness, exacted vengeance. Thurston whirled and cracked the man's skull.
Homer welcomed death with a smile. That dark lady was the only woman who could love him.
Wulf ignored the drama. With Medical a minute away nobody needed die the death-without-resurrection. He was looking for people notable for their absence.
Helmut roared in clad in nothing but underwear. He had a gun in each hand. "What happened?"
"Find Dee!" Wulf ordered. "Kill him. Cut him up and shove the pieces out different locks. The Colonel can't stop it this time."
Helmut looked at the bodies. He needed no more clues.
They separated, seeking a trail. They were hounds who would not be satisfied till the blood of their quarry stained their muzzles.
Wulf was too angry. He missed the most outstanding absence. Frieda. She should have been in the middle of things, screaming and weeping over her poor baby, preventing anything sensible from getting done.
Within minutes the entire Fortress was mobilized for the sole purpose of locating Michael Dee. But somehow, despite the planetoid's limitations, he managed to evade capture.
The brothers Darksword conquered their emotions, repaired to Combat, directed the search from there.
They arrived as the man on instel communications ripped off a printout. It was a frantic message from Storm. Wulf read it first, bowed his head in despair. "Twenty minutes, that's all it would have taken."
"Signal too late. Twenty minutes too late. Sign my name," Helmut said.
"I want Dee," Wulf grumbled.
"Set the hounds on him."
"Yes."
In minutes they had Storm's Sirian warhounds seeking a trail. They found it on Residential Level. It led to the ingress locks. Their questions baffled the duty section. They had seen no one but the Colonel's wife in hours. She and two corpsmen had loaded a pair of medical-support cradles aboard an old singleship...
"Oh, hell!" Wulf swore. "You think... ?"
Helmut nodded. He grabbed a comm.
It took two calls to confirm the worst. Dee, following Homer's killing thrust, had seized Frieda and dragged her to her apartment. He had stripped and bound and gagged her, and had assumed her clothing and identity. From there he had gone to Medical and, playing on Frieda's neurotic concern from Benjamin, had convinced the duty corpsmen to transfer the dead to a hospital with planetary resources backing it. Dee had played his part to such perfection that the unsuspecting corpsmen had helped move and load the cryo coffins.
Even those who had known the Darkswords for decades were awed by the rage they displayed.
"He isn't away yet," Helmut remarked after regaining his composure. "He didn't know where the Colonel went when he pulled this. Let's see what they say in Combat. We might have a shot at him yet."
They commenced the counter game backed by Combat's resources.
"He's headed straight out," Wulf said, indicating the Dee blip in the main global display. "Putting on a lot of inherent velocity while he's getting up influence to go hyper." He picked up a pointer and indicated each of a half-dozen blips chasing Dee. "They scrambled fast."
The senior watchstander said, "I sent everybody who was on maneuvers when I heard what the situation was, sir." He happened to be the man who had disappointed Storm and Cassius in the Abhoussi and Dee incident.
"Very good," Helmut replied. "That's thinking on your feet."
"I scrambled everything in dock, too, sir. I assumed... "
"You assumed correctly," Wulf said. "Anything that will space. They're starting to come on display, Helmut."
A wild spray of diverging tracks began to spread behind the Dee blip. Wulf glanced to one side. "Tactical computer have control?"
"Yes, sir. You can input whatever the situation seems to call for."
"Basal strategy?"
"Build a plane of no return behind Dee, sir. Put the fastest ships on the rim and move them forward to make a pocket."
"Very good. Helmut, looks like we've got him. It might take a while, though."
"We're going to have to get a command ship out. We won't be able to direct it from here for long."
The senior watchstander said, "I held the Robert Knottys, sir. I've given them a direct feed. They're running a parallel program. You can board and shift control."
"Good. That's a good start," Wulf said.
"I believe we have him," Helmut said, peering into the display tank. "Unless he's headed somewhere damned close. That's a damned slow boat he's running."
"What's the nearest planetfall that direction?" Wulf asked. If Dee made planetfall before the jaws of pursuit closed he would become impossible to find. He would vanish amid the population and marshal his own resources in the time it took to track him down. His resources were not inconsiderable.
"Helga's World, sir."
"Ah!" Wulf began to smile. He and the Colonel definitely had aces up their sleeves.
Helmut said, "Communications are the problem. The control. There's a lot of space out there."
"And?"
"So it's time to call in old debts. See if there's a Starfisher who can relay for us. They don't love Michael either."
Wulf turned to his instel operator. "Go on the thirty-seven band with a loop. ‘Storm for Gales.' "