"Look, damn it, I want everyone to stop grabbing me… this instant!" Susan slapped at Roland's fist.
This was getting out of hand. On top of it, I was coming down with the creepy itches again. I brushed off both shoulders. What was it? Nerves? Bugs?
"Susan, please, please calm down," John was saying.
"Let go of me."
"Roland, let her go."
"Where exactly do you think you're going?" Roland asked her.
"To the motel where Roger and Shari are staying."
"We'll drive you there. All right?"
"No, thank you. I prefer to walk."
"Susan, be reasonable. Let her go, Roland."
"Don't be stupid," Roland told her.
'Take your bloody hands off me."
"No, I won't take my hands off you until you listen to reason for one goddamn minute."
"I said take your hands off me!"
"JAKE!" It was Darla, standing beside the car with the door open, pointing with urgency to something behind me. I whirled and saw the front end of a squad car peeking from behind a pile of junk in the vacant lot across the street.
"Everybody down!" I dove over the engine housing of the Gaddy, glided over the slippery finish, went end over end to hit ground with a turned shoulder, and rolled to a crouch. The Teelies looked at me as if I were insane. I crawled over, opened
Roland's door. "Get down! DOWN!" Roland got the idea first, grabbed the collar of John's funny-looking gray cassock and pulled him over down to the seat. I was reaching for Susan when the first salvo hit. The aeroglass windscreen of the Gaddy erupted into crushed ice. Susan still sat there ― miraculously unhurt ― shaking her head, baffled.
"Why… why are they shooting at us? We're not―"
I yanked her out of the car and down to the pavement just as the next salvo slammed into the Gaddy. The air was alive with high-density slugs, their hypersonic cracking louder than the report that sent them on their way. The Gaddy shook like green jello as slugs chunked into it from at least three directions. John and Roland tumbled out of the front door in a pile.
"Stay low!" I told them. Looking around, I saw no cover. The lot on this side had nothing to offer but dry scrub brush and a few Wurlitzer trees.
I heard Darla gun the automobile's engine. The tires wailed as she popped the clutch pedal and jumped the curb. She came toward us swerving crazily. A steering wheel's hard to get used to. She crossed the paved sidewalk and ran the car into the loose sandy soil of the lot, sideswiped a Wurlitzer, then straightened out and came at us, the tires shooting streamers of dirt behind. She pulled up alongside the Gaddy and slid to a halt, racing the engine noisily. Then she accidentally let up on the clutch while in gear and nearly stalled the engine, but managed to keep it going. As she opened the driver's door an HD slug whanged off the Chevy, screaming away in ricochet. I didn't have time to be surprised at that. The door now effectively blocked the cops' angle of fire from one vantage point. I helped John get past me, then Roland.
"Everybody in!" I said. "Stay low!" I shoved Susan through the door, Darla helping inside. The antique vehicle was now attracting most of the fire, but it was partially blocked by the Gaddy, which was flying apart in frayed pieces. Roland crawled through, then John hauled his lean frame up and over the seat. Right then another shot hit the door, spanging off as well, but the impact nearly knocked me aside. I pushed and shoved John's skinny bun up and into what I now knew to be an HD-proof vehicle, miracle of miracles. A high-density slug is hard to stop.
The front seat was a tangle of bodies. I pulled myself in, wedging myself into position, trying to force my foot through a snake pit of arms and legs to the accelerator pedal. I got to it and pressed down. The engine howled, but the buggy didn't move. I had to shift into first but couldn't reach die clutch pedal. My left foot was lodged between the door and the front seat. I bent over and ducked my head under the wheel, painfully contorting myself down to where I could push me pedals with my hands. Someone drove an elbow into my ear.
"Darla, shift! Put the thing to number one!"
I felt the shaft move against my neck. I let the clutch pedal slide out from my hand and flattened the accelerator with my forearm. The motor howled and the G-force pinned my neck against the gearshift. We were moving.
"Steer!" I shouted. Out of the comer of my eye I saw her leaning over the back of the seat with her hands on the wheel.
A sudden flash and an explosion. They had brought up exciter cannon. The Gaddy was no more. It also meant we didn't have a chance. Seconds later a white-hot cloud of brilliance enveloped us ― and just as quickly we were out of it. An exciter bolt had hit us dead center and we were unharmed.
The vehicle shook with impact after impact, shots bouncing off like stones from steel plate. Darla wheeled to the left and we hit something, but it didn't stop us. The engine was shouting for second gear, but I didn't want to chance it.
Then I suddenly realized we had time. We had taken the worst they could throw at us. "Everybody off!" I hollered, stupidly, because I was the one on top. I let up on the accelerator and untangled myself.
"Ouch!" came Roland's voice. A hand clawed at my face.
Darla took her hands from the wheel and helped pull me off the pile of Teelies.Susan got free and crawled into the back seat, leaving Roland, John, and me to sort ourselves out. We finally did and I came up for air, cracked the door to get my foot free, slammed it closed again. We were coasting through the brush on the other side of the lot. We reached the sidewalk, bounced over the curb, and by that time I had the transmission rammed into second. I floored the pedal and we roared out into the street, the tires yipping like hounds at bay.
"Which way to the highway?" I asked, but didn't get an answer. Two squad cars angled out into the street presented a more pressing question. My answer was straightforward. With all the confidence in the world, I blithely aimed our anachronistic vehicle for the apex of the triangle the blocking cars formed.
"Hang on, people."
Shots caromed off the glass ― which wasn't glass at all ― and coherent beams played over the curving, glossy hull. Impervious. We hit the squad cars with a loud bang but a mild jolt, shoved them carelessly aside, and raced on down the street. We passed other cop cars, an armored personnel carrier, then broke through the perimeter the Militia had secured. Their second line of defense was negligible: wooden barriers. I made toothpicks of a few of them, screeched around a comer to the right, hung a left, then a right again, then debouched onto a wide boulevard mat seemed to lead away from town.
Frightening power throbbed beneath my foot. I'd never driven anything with comparable performance. And it was still in third gear. The "speedometer" read ninety somethings per hour. Miles? Sure. Appropriate to the period.
For the next twenty minutes I drove with nothing in my way but air. Maxwellville thinned to suburbs, then to development tracts, then to nothing but open road with bare land on either side. No roadblocks; they hadn't had time. Everyone sat in dazed silence. The Teelies were stunned, blank faces staring at the mesa rolling by.
Flashing barriers ahead, a new section of Colonial highway, and a sign. TO SKYWAY AND SEVEN SUNS INTERCHANGE ― ROUTES 85, 14 AND POINTS SPINWARD. I managed to avoid hitting the barriers. We shot over the entry ramp and out onto new Maklite surface six lanes wide. I called Sam.
"I got a fix on you now, boy."
"That's good," I said. "Where are you?"
"Out in the bush by the starslab. But don't worry, I'II pick you up. What are you driving?"
"You won't believe it, but you'll know it the moment you see it. Old Terran automobile. A replica, of course. But, Sam, I'll need to know where you are. We have to make the switch off the road somewhere, out of sight. Everybody in the galaxy's hot on my trail."