"Is that what you shoved through the window back there?" he asked.
"What's that?"
"A piano. It looked like something big went through it."
"You didn't look down."
"Too dizzy. Afraid I'd fall out. I didn't think you had left that way."
I had put my suitcase on the far side of the down duct, and now I eased myself carefully over it. I moved down about five feet, and snapped on the penlight.
"And you knew I hadn't gone out the front door," I said. Somehow, keeping him talking made me feel better. When he talked, he was just another human being. When he was silent he was Death.
"You left a little strip of toilet paper sticking out of the grate."
"I was in a hurry."
"I saw some puzzling things. Holes in the door. The missing window."
"Your friend is what went out the window," I said.
"I thought so. Sparky, you're full of surprises."
"But you keep coming back to life," I said. "Cats get nine lives. How many do rats get?"
"At least one more. The first time I underestimated you. The second time you were lucky. And now Isobel is gone. The third time, I will get you."
"Is this still the second time, or are we talking third time right now?"
He didn't say anything. I flashed the light around frantically, left, right, down, behind me. If he stopped talking I was afraid he was setting some trap, or sneaking up from an unexpected direction. As long as he talked, I knew he was still in the pipe with me.
"This Isobel," I ventured. "A friend of yours?"
"She was my sister."
Oh, terrific. But he said it like I might have said, "You want some fries with that?" I tried to think of a reply, but what do you say to a man whose sister you just defenestrated? Sorry didn't quite cover it, and it wasn't true, anyway. I was not sorry, even a little bit. So I had my reply.
"She didn't die quickly," I said. "She seemed to be in a great deal of pain. I'm pretty sure she was alive when I pushed her out."
"Good," he said. Well, what did I expect?
"You didn't like her?"
"I worshiped her."
"Could you explain that to me?"
"Not now. Later, if you're still alive."
I figured he figured he was almost on me. Okay, I was almost ready for him.
During our talk I'd pulled out the one implement among fifty or sixty I'd bought the pocketknife for. This was a little item known as a chain knife. You've probably heard of them but it's unlikely you've seen one, as most planets banned their manufacture years ago. It's true they were useful for several things, but what they were best at was butchery.
This one was a five-inch snub-nosed blade. If you looked at it closely, you'd see all around the edge almost a thousand tiny razors set in a stainless-steel chain. The razors were shaped like shark's teeth. When you pressed the power button, that chain began moving so fast it looked to be part of the blade. It made a high-pitched whine, not unlike a dental drill in old movies. Believe me, you'd rather face a thousand dental drills with no ether than go up against a chain knife. It was based on something called a chain saw, which was used on Old Earth to cut down towering redwoods. I could just sort of wave it at your throat; you'd feel nothing until the blood started to spurt as your severed head fell from your shoulders. Bone, gristle, sinew, muscle. It was all the same to the chain knife. Like butter.
It wouldn't have been my weapon of choice against Isambard C, but it was the weapon I had. My main problem was that, to use it, one had to be in close, and in close I knew he held all the high cards. I might not get more than one swipe at him. That swipe had to count.
So what I'd been doing was preparing a trap.
The chain knife barely buzzed as I poked it through the top of the air-duct pipe. I moved it left to right cutting an arc, then back, then over the top again, then forward. I ended with a half cylinder of thin plastic suitable for my purpose. I put my light and my head up through the hole I'd just made, but it was very close and black and I couldn't tell much. Maneuvering room was to his advantage, so I rejected the idea of simply standing up and stumbling away in the dark. Unless...
No, it was too risky. If I'd retraced the pipe, from the outside this time, maybe I could have found the section that he was in and sliced him up while he was trapped inside. But how would I know where he was? Again, I'd get one shot, and I'd be stabbing blindly. As soon as he knew I had a chain knife a lot of my advantage would be lost. My best shot seemed to be face-to-face, in close quarters.
I thought there was a good chance he didn't realize I knew about how his pistol worked. Maybe he was expecting to close the last yard or two while I clicked the trigger at him, uselessly. One can hope.
I knelt back down in the pipe and fitted the cutaway section over the big hole in the bottom of the pipe. It was a bit too large. Working with only very brief flickers of light from my knife, I trimmed off edges and corners until it was just slightly bigger than the descending shaft. I ran my hand over it, lightly tested its strength. I couldn't tell any difference in texture. The plastic bent only slightly, but it seemed sure that if I put my weight on it I'd buckle it, and plunge headfirst down into the pipe.
I'd done all I could do. I moved back a few feet, hunkered down, and waited. The trap was between us and it was pitch-black. But I was far from sure he wouldn't scent something wrong.
Thump sssh. Thump sssh.
What was making that noise? Dragging a broken leg? That would account for the sssh, but what about the thump?
I never found out, because I never saw him in motion down the tube.
There was the slightest new sound. Had he reached the trap? Could he feel it with his fingers? The noise of his movement stopped.
"Left... right, and... yes. Straight ahead," he said. My god, he was here. I still hunkered, drenched in sweat, not daring to breathe.
"Which way would you go, Sparky? I can smell you, I can smell your fear. I like that smell."
I prayed to all the Muses. No sneezes. No growling stomach.
"Which way would a coward go? Seems obvious, doesn't it? Turning left or right involves too many decisions. You'd go straight ahead.
Thump. And then a glorious sound: narrow-gauge plastic crumpling like a sheet of thick paper. I snapped on the light and saw him half in, half out of the down tube. His head and shoulders were in, and he had one hand on the edge of the pipe nearest to me. That, and his knees, were all that kept him from the plunge.
Without even thinking about it I slashed at his hand with the chain knife. Bzzzzt! The air filled with a fine pink mist, and half of his hand was lying there like a bundle of hard little sausages. At the same time I sidled over and jammed my foot down hard on the back of his neck. He slid down, held there poised for a moment with his knees straining to hold his body in a position too angled to fit into the tube, and then he started to slide. I shoved his ass with my shoe, to get him going.
Then he was gone.
I collapsed into a quivering hulk, sitting tailor fashion. I wiped my brow with the back of my hand, coming within an inch of slicing off my ear with the chain knife. I stopped the whirring of the chain, took a few deep breaths. I still had the light on, simply because I'd never been this afraid of the dark. I knew he had to be gone, but a part of me kept expecting him to leap out of the down tube and go for my throat. To reassure myself, I leaned over and played the light down the tube.
He was five feet away, head down. All I could see was his feet and part of his legs. But he was moving. He was moving up.
"Why won't you die?" I shouted at him. The sound of my own voice frightened me. It sounded very near to madness.