"Let's go—as far away from that robot as we can get!"
Berkk needed no urging, was in fact well ahead of me in what was possibly a life—or—death race.
No heads turned in our direction as we ran by; the women's aims kept sweeping, brushing.
"Something up ahead there, lights of some kind. Maybe buildings," Berkk said.
I took a look behind us and put on a panic burst of speed; enough to pass him.
"It's seen us. It's coming after us!'~
When I dared to look again it was closer, running faster than us, steel legs pumping like pistons. We couldn't win—
I turned my head back just in time to see one of the women leave her position at the table, just a silhouetted figure against the distant lights. She turned and was stepping out in front of me. I tried to go around her but she put her arms out to grab me. A sudden twist and I was thrown breathless to the ground.
An instant later Berkk fell on top of me. And the robot was almost there!
The woman arrived first. Throwing her body forward so that she landed on top of both of us, her face almost pressing against mine.
"It's about time you showed up," Angelina said.
Chapter 23
Darkness vanished and I blinked against the sudden glare of bright lights. I could feel Berkk writhing under me—while directly before my eyes was the most beautiful sight in all of the known, and unknown, galaxy.
Angelina's black—smeared smiling face. I lifted my head and kissed the tip of her nose.
"Errgle," Berkk errgled, trying to wriggle out from under our weight. I moved a bit so he could get free, still clutching harder to Angelina's warm, firm body. We kissed enthusiastically and it was more of heaven than the Heaven we had just left would ever be.
"When you are through with that you might report what you found," Coypu said. I would recognize that voice anywhere. We separated reluctantly and stood up. Still holding hands.
Behind Coypu was a very familiar laboratory.
"We're in Special Corps Prime Base!" I said.
"Obviously, We moved the entire operation back here when you failed to return from Heaven. Slakey is very dangerous people. Soon after we got here there were a number of attempts to penetrate our defenses. They have all failed and the shields are stronger than ever."
"You would like a drink?" Angelina said, whistling over the robar. "Two double Venerian Vodka Coolers."
"After you, my darling. And another for my friend, Berkk, here."
He still sat on the floor, looking around and gaping. His fingers clutched the glass the robar gave him and we all glugged enthusiastically.
"Now, tell me, Professor," I said, hokling out my glass for a—refill. "What was Angelina doing in that terrible place—..and how did she get us back?"
Before he could answer the door burst open and Bolivaror was it James?—burst in followed by his brother. With Sybil a short pace behind.
"Dad!" There were enthusiastic embraces all around, and some more drinks from the robar so we could toast our successful return. As we lowered our glasses Berkk dropped his. When he bent over to pick it up he just kept going, falling heavily to the floor, unconscious. I grabbed his wrist—almost no pulse at all.
"Medic!" I shouted as I rolled him onto his back and opened his mouth to make sure that his air passages were clear. But as I did this I was pushed not—too—gently aside by the medbot that had dropped Out of the ceiling. It put a manipulator into Berkk's mouth to secure his tongue. At the same time it pressed an analyzer against his skin, took a blood sample, extruded a pillow under his head, did a fast body scan, covered him with a blanket and had already radioed for a doctor who burst through the door scant instants later.
"Stand clear," he ordered as the medbot slid an expanding metal web under Berkk's body, popped wheels out of the ends and carefully drove off with him. "The surgeon is standing by," the doctor said. "There appears to be a small blood clot on the patient's brain, undoubtedly caused by a blow to the skull. Prognosis good." He hurried after the medbot while Sybil hurried after him.
"I'll see what happens and report back," she said. She left with Bolivar and James right behind her. The three were inseparable now. Which might lead to problems that I did not wish to consider at this moment.
This put a bit of a damper on the party and we sipped glumly at our drinks. Before we finished them—modern medicine sure works fast—Coypu's phone rang and he grabbed it up. Listened, nodded, then smiled.
"Thank you, Sybil," he said and hung up. "Operation successful, out of danger, no permanent brain damage. He'll stay in narcsleep until the treatment is finished."
We cheered at that. "Thank you, Professor," I said. "With this last emergency out of the way we can now relax and listen. While you tell us how my Angelina managed to drag me out of the hell in Heaven and how she got there in the first place. After which we will try to figure out what all the strange happenings that have been going on really mean. Professor."
"We will take the explanation one step a time, if you don't mind. To go back to the beginning. When you did not return after a good deal of time had passed I activated your undetectable interuniversal activator and the boot returned. Without you. Since you were not wearing the boot I reached the inescapable conclusion that my machine had been detected. Therefore I had to improve its undetectability. I did this rather quickly because I was feeling very, very rushed."
"I held a gun to the back of his head with my finger trembling on the trigger," Angeina said, smiling sweetly. "I was going after you and intended to bring you back—with a better machine than the duff one he had supplied you with."
"It was an early model," Coypu muttered defensively. "I improved the design greatly then constructed three devices of varying degrees of undetectability."
"I carried the first hidden in the lining of my purse," Angelina said. "The second was under the skin on my arm, here." She rubbed at the long white scar, easily visible under the dusty smears, and scowled. "I will have to get this unsightly thing removed."
"That is not the only thing that is going to be removed," I grated through tight—clamped teeth. "I'm going to kill that particular Slakey for that botched bit of surgery."
"Not if I get there first, darling. He of course very quickly found the one in my purse, and then he detected this one, with great difficulty I must say. He was so pleased with himself that he never considered that there might be a third."
"Where is it?" I asked.
"Where Slakey obviously could not find it," Coypu said, happily rattling his fingers on his foreteeth. "I knew that there was no way to detect the pseudo—electrons, so it must have been the pseudo—electron paths in the solid state circuitry that he found. So I impressed my neural network on Angelina's neural network where it would be concealed by her neural activity."
"You mean that you built your machine right into her nervous system?" "Exactly so. Since my pseudo electrons move at pseudo speed, there would be no interference with the electrical function of her synapses. The circuitry ended directly in her brain."
"So when I thought go, we all went," she said, throwing her empty glass towards the robar, which plucked it out of the air with a flip of a tentacle. "Now lam going to wash off this mud and stench and I suggest, Jim diGriz, that you do the same."
"I will after I ask you a single question..
"It can wait." Then she was gone. I whistled up another drink.
"Tell me all that happened," Coypu said.
"You let her go after Slakey alone!" I accused. "With all the massed strength of the Corps to hand."
"And a gun to my head. Do you think that there was any way to stop her?"
"No—but you could at least have tried."
"I did. What happened?"
I slumped in a chair, sipped my drink, and told him the entire repulsive story. My descent into Purgatory from Heaven and the women at the sorting tables there. Then being tossed through Slakey's machine to the living hell of the mining world. He popped his eyes a bit when I told him about our escape in the rebar cages. Narrowed his eyes into pensive slits when he heard about the laboratory and the mysterious circular tunnel.