“Sherikov—”
“He’s called off his guards. We’ve agreed to a truce. It’s all over. No more needed.” Reinhart gasped for breath, wiping grime and sweat from his neck. “Land your ship and come down here at once.”
“The variable man?”
“That comes next,” Reinhart said grimly. He adjusted his gun tube. “I want you down here, for that part. I want you to be in on the kill.”
Reinhart turned away from the vidscreen. In the corner of the room Sherikov stood silently, saying nothing. “Well?” Reinhart barked. “Where is he? Where will I find him?”
Sherikov licked his lips nervously, glancing up at Reinhart. “Commissioner, are you sure—”
“The attack has been called off. Your labs are safe. So is your life. Now it’s your turn to come through.” Reinhart gripped his gun, moving toward Sherikov. “Where is he?”
For a moment Sherikov hesitated. Then slowly his huge body sagged defeated. He shook his head wearily. “All right. I’ll show you where he is.” Hi voice was hardly audible, a dry whisper. “Down this way. Come on.”
Reinhart followed Sherikov out of the room, into the corridor. Police and guards were working rapidly, clearing the debris and ruins away, putting out the hydrogen fires that burned everywhere. “No tricks, Sherikov.”
“No tricks.” Sherikov nodded resignedly. “Thomas Cole is by himself. In a wing lab off the main rooms.”
“Cole?”
“The variable man. That’s his name.” The Pole turned his massive head a little. “He has a name.”
Reinhart waved his gun. “Hurry up. I don’t want anything to go wrong. This is the part I came for.”
“You must remember something, Commissioner.”
“What is it?”
Sherikov stopped walking. “Commissioner, nothing must happen to the globe. The control turret. Everything depends on it, the war, our whole—”
“I know. Nothing will happen to the damn thing. Let’s go.”
“If it should get damaged—”
“I’m not after the globe. I’m interested only in—in Thomas Cole.”
They came to the end of the corridor and stopped before a metal door. Sherikov nodded at the door. “In there.”
Reinhart moved back. “Open the door.”
“Open it yourself. I don’t want to have anything to do with it.”
Reinhart shrugged. He stepped up to the door. Holding his gun level he raised his hand, passing it in front of the eye circuit. Nothing happened.
Reinhart frowned. He pushed the door with his hand. The door slid open. Reinhart was looking into a small laboratory. He glimpsed a workbench, tools, heaps of equipment, measuring devices, and in the center of the bench the transparent globe, the control turret.
“Cole?” Reinhart advanced quickly into the room. He glanced around him, suddenly alarmed. “Where—”
The room was empty. Thomas Cole was gone.
When the first missile struck, Cole stopped work and sat listening.
Far off, a distant rumble rolled through the earth, shaking the floor under him. On the bench, tools and equipment danced up and down. A pair of pliers fell crashing to the floor. A box of screws tipped over, spilling its minute contents out.
Cole listened for a time. Presently he lifted the transparent globe from the bench. With carefully controlled hands he held the globe up, running his fingers gently over the surface, his faded blue eyes thoughtful. Then, after a time, he placed the globe back on the bench, in its mount.
The globe was finished. A faint glow of pride moved through the variable man. The globe was the finest job he had ever done.
The deep rumblings ceased. Cole became instantly alert. He jumped down from his stool, hurrying across the room to the door. For a moment he stood by the door listening intently. He could hear noise on the other side, shouts, guards rushing past, dragging heavy equipment, working frantically.
A rolling crash echoed down the corridor and lapped against his door. The concussion spun him around. Again a tide of energy shook the walls and floor and sent him down on his knees.
The lights flickered and winked out.
Cole fumbled in the dark until he found a flashlight. Power failure. He could hear crackling flames. Abruptly the lights came on again, an ugly yellow, then faded back out. Cole bent down and examined the door with his flashlight. A magnetic lock. Dependent on an externally induced electric flux. He grabbed a screwdriver and pried at the door. For a moment it held. Then it fell open.
Cole stepped warily out into the corridor. Everything was in shambles. Guards wandered everywhere, burned and half blinded. Two lay groaning under a pile of wrecked equipment. Fused guns, reeking metal. The air was heavy with the smell of burning wiring and plastic. A thick cloud that choked him and made him bend double as he advanced.
“Halt,” a guard gasped feebly, struggling to rise. Cole pushed past him and down the corridor. Two small robot guns, still functioning, glided past him hurriedly toward the drumming chaos of battle. He followed.
At a major intersection the fight was in full swing. Sherikov’s guards fought Security police, crouched behind pillars and barricades, firing wildly, desperately. Again the whole structure shuddered as a great booming blast ignited some place above. Bombs? Shells?
Cole threw himself down as a violet beam cut past his ear and disintegrated the wall behind him. A Security policeman, wild-eyed, firing erratically. One of Sherikov’s guards winged him and his gun skidded to the floor.
A robot cannon turned toward him as he made his way past the intersection. He began to run. The cannon rolled along behind him, aiming itself uncertainly. Cole hunched over as he shambled rapidly along, gasping for breath. In the flickering yellow light he saw a handful of Security police advancing, firing expertly, intent on a line of defense Sherikov’s guards had hastily set up.
The robot cannon altered its course to take them on, and Cole escaped around a corner.
He was in the main lab, the big chamber where Icarus himself rose, the vast squat column.
Icarus! A solid wall of guards surrounded him, grim-faced, hugging guns and protection shields. But the Security police were leaving Icarus alone. Nobody wanted to damage him. Cole evaded a lone guard tracking him and reached the far side of the lab.
It took him only a few seconds to find the force field generator. There was no switch. For a moment that puzzled him—and then he remembered. The guard had controlled it from his wrist.
Too late to worry about that. With his screwdriver he unfastened the plate over the generator and ripped out the wiring in handfuls. The generator came loose and he dragged it away from the wall. The screen was off, thank God. He managed to carry the generator into a side corridor.
Crouched in a heap, Cole bent over the generator, deft fingers flying. He pulled the wiring to him and laid it out on the floor, tracing the circuits with feverish haste.
The adaptation was easier than he had expected. The screen flowed at right angles to the wiring, for a distance of six feet. Each lead was shielded on one side; the field radiated outward, leaving a hollow cone in the center. He ran the wiring through his belt, down his trouser legs, under his shirt, all the way to his wrists and ankles.
He was just snatching up the heavy generator when two Security police appeared. They raised their blasters and fired point-blank.
Cole clicked on the screen. A vibration leaped through him that snapped his jaw and danced up his body. He staggered away, half-stupefied by the surging force that radiated out from him. The violet rays struck the field and deflected harmlessly.
He was safe.
He hurried on down the corridor, past a ruined gun and sprawled bodies still clutching blasters. Great drifting clouds of radioactive particles billowed around him. He edged by one cloud nervously. Guards lay everywhere, dying and dead, partly destroyed, eaten and corroded by the hot metallic salts in the air. He had to get out—and fast.