But there was no time now. I walked out of the cell.
The turnkey was on duty at his desk, with one side of his face down in a plate of stew, eyes open, staring. Quietly, I lifted his master key, went over to the door and waved it at the code plate, and let myself out of the cell block.
Everyone in the station was out but me. Wide-eyed bodies littered the corridors, office workers were slumped over consoles. Cops sat against walls, leaned on doorjambs with their guns drawn, looking at them stupidly, transfixed. In one office a printer had been left on and was spewing out reams of hard copy in a continuous roll, piling up on the floor. From the size of the pile I guessed that everyone had been out for ten minutes at least.
I was looking for Petrovsky's office, or failing that, trying to find where they stored prisoners' valuables, or where they kept evidence. I needed Sam's key. Nobody showed signs of coming to yet, but I hurried, running through the maze of white aseptic hallways, glancing into rooms and dashing off again. Reilly's office was empty, and no sign of Petrovsky anywhere.
I tried a half dozen more offices, stumbled onto an employees' lounge with two cops draped over a table awash with spilled beverage, found a communications room, a storage room filled with filing cabinets, a library, but nothing like a lock-and-key affair where evidence would be stashed. Maybe Petrovsky had been going through my stuff when the blackout hit ― if I could find him….
I found him in another office sitting upright at the desk, eyes glazed, deep in a trance that made him look like a redheaded Buddha, helmet in his right hand, white handkerchief in his left, both arms extended over the desk top as if in supplication. His head lolled to one side, gaze on infinity.
And on the floor in front of the desk lay Darla.
9
She was face-down with her head resting on her right forearm. I turned her over to find unfocused eyes looking through me. She had changed clothes and was now in a dark green, ersatz-velvet jumpsuit, with black knee-high boots. She looked very different. I got her to sit up and she responded somewhat, moving as if underwater, limbs like taffy on a warm day, but when I got her to her feet she couldn't walk, couldn't draw it all together to perform all the motions in proper sequence. I leaned her against me, reached over the desk, and pushed Petrovsky back in his chair. I opened the top desk drawer and searched through it for Sam's key, but found only Darla's Wanner. I took it, then reached inside Petrovsky's jacket for his pistol. I stooped, put my shoulder to Darla's midsection, and she went up and over into a fireman's carry like a sack of wheat. Her pack was near the overturned chair, and I threw her gun into it and grabbed it.
As I carried her through the station, I wondered how much time I had. I was getting the feeling that everyone would be coming around soon enough. I didn't bother to guess what had caused the phenomenon, since several methods were likely candidates, but the extent and completeness of the effect were impressive. Nor did I waste time wondering who had done it. Later ― if there was a later ― I'd write a thank-you note on nice stationery and think about whom to send it to.
I reached the garage, went on through to the man-size door, thinking it strange that no one had come in from outside, unaffected and wondering what the hell had happened ― cops returning from driving their beats, coming back from lunch, etc. I cracked the door and looked out into the lot. Two stalwart constables were slouched in their car parked near the door, stupefied grins beamed at no one in particular. I was really impressed now; even more so when further outside I found another cop who had been pulling into the lot when the effect hit ― either that or he was in the habit of wrapping his vehicle around a heat-pump unit when he parked. His face was squashed up against the front of the bubble.
Which brought up our immediate transportation needs. Steal a squad car? No chance. No time to hot-chip the thumbprint-lock or deactivate the tracing beacons. Besides, they'd know what I was driving, down to the serial number. Then I forgot the problem momentarily, staggered by the fact that pedestrians on the near side of the street had been hit too. Three people lay face down on the sidewalk. Good trick, that. I cut down an alleyway going parallel to the street behind the station.
Darla couldn't have massed over sixty kg at one-G, but she was a burden on Goliath. Her pack was no bagatelle either. I found a walkway between two outbuildings, put her down, and propped her up against a wall. I firmly swatted her cheeks a few times, crossing carefully over the pain threshold, then shook her as hard as I could. Her cheeks blushed the color of winter dawn, her eyes fluttered, and she sighed, but she was still out on her feet. Well, time to get moving again. I levered her up on my shoulder, hoisted the pack, and stood mere debating where I should go. Then I sensed movement behind me. I whirled around, almost toppling over.
Two Ryxx stood in the alley, gawking at us, scrawny bird-legs thrust out at oblique angles to the pavement, shoring up their fat ostrichlike bodies against at least twice the Ryxx homeworld's gravity. Clear assist masks covered their faces, faces that did not belong on bird bodies, sour old faces like those of Terran camels, but the eyes were much bigger, and there were four of them, two above the snout in the usual configuration, two at the base of the long slender neck. They liked to look where they put those taloned avian feet. They were dressed in the usual manner, in skintight body suits of brightly colored material with embroidered gilt designs around the lower eyeholes. Their huge bony hands ― hands that once were framework for wing membrane ― were folded up with | spindly arms in a very complicated manner at the sides.
I clucked the appropriate greeting, all I knew of their language, which, written out, comes out to: "R-r-ryxx-ryxx (click) r-r-ryxx," with each morpheme at a slightly different pitch. With my language ability, I had probably asked them to pass the salt.
The one on the right returned the greeting, and added in 'System, "And hello to you, Roadbrother."
"And to you, Roadbrothers," I said, "many thanks, if I am indebted to you for my freedom."
I turned and walked away after I decided they were not going to respond or change facial expressions to give me some sort of clue. I didn't look back, knowing they were following at a discreet distance.
I went out to the street on which the Militia station fronted further down. This was risky, but I had walked away from the Ryxx automatically, even though they made no move to obstruct me. I stood at the mouth of the alley next to a Stop-N-Shop. Colonists passed by, looked at me and the lithe young girl slung across my shoulder, frowned, and walked on. But I didn't look at them.
There it was. The antique automobile, parked on the street in front of the store. The motor was running.
It had a key! Not an electronic signaller/beacon/radio like Sam's key, but a key, for God's sake, a piece of metal that fit into a mechanical lock. I marveled at the interior, the metal grillwork of the dash, the blue fur of the seats, the pink shaggy carpeting of the floor, the pair of fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror… and the wheel, the steering wheel. Sweet Mother, a wheel with a shiny knob stuck to it. What was this? A gear shift, angling out from the salient hump on the floor that bisected the interior, a big old gearshift tipped with a bulbous handle with an H engraved on it, like so:
Gears? Steering wheel? Manually operated windows that appeared to be made of glass? This was no Skyway-worthy vehicle. Wait a minute. Oh, here they were, under the dash, the readouts. Not the funny oil pressure and water-temperature gauges, the real ones hidden away: plasma temp, current delta, everything. This was a fusion-powered roadster. A mock-up, not the real thing. But still.'what the hell was this? A clutch! Just like in the books. It couldn't be, but I saw no other way of operating the thing.