He looked back. Richter was leaning out of his car. There was a muzzle flash. Benny’s rearview mirror was blown off. Richter was getting better!
Quaid leaned out a window and fired back, carefully. The shot went true; Richter’s windshield shattered.
The car swerved, but did not go out of control. That meant he hadn’t hit the driver. Too bad. He saw a hand with a gun scraping the glass beads away. Then the fire resumed, from inside the car.
All he had accomplished was to make it easier for Richter to shoot at them! Indeed, it looked as if the man was bringing out heavier artillery. What did he have?
Richter fired. A fender was blasted off the cab. He fired again. Another window went. That was a heavy-duty piece, all right!
Quaid fired back, but his gun now seemed inadequate. Both men in the pursuing car were hunkered down, so he couldn’t get a clear shot, and unless he scored on one of them, he wouldn’t accomplish much. There seemed to be metallic shields guarding the front tires, so the car wasn’t vulnerable to much more damage by his gun. That cannon of Richter’s, however—
Richter fired again. This time the roof was blasted off the cab.
“Fuck!” Benny exclaimed. “The cab ain’t even paid for!”
There was worse coming. Benny’s tire was blasted as they went through a curve. The cab went out of control and flipped over, sliding to a stop in the Venusville Plaza.
Quaid was hardly aware of what he did; probably his Hauser-aspect had taken over again, as it did in utter crisis. He found himself holding Melina, wrapped around her as much as possible, protecting her from the crash.
Before the motion stopped, he acted. “Out!” he snapped. They scrambled under the hanging seats and out through the broken windshield. “Move! Move!” he urged, lurching to his feet and hauling Benny and Melina out.
“Aw, Christ,” Benny groaned. “Now they’re after me!”
The three of them started off at a run, barely in time. Richter’s car zoomed out of the blind curve and screeched to a halt. He and Helm emerged, saturating the wreck with gunfire.
CHAPTER 20
Kuato
The sound of gunfire must have alerted the bartender at the Last Resort. He held the door open as Melina, Quaid, and Benny dashed up, and he slammed it shut behind them as they spilled inside. Quaid pulled up short, momentarily confused at the scene that greeted him.
Tony and the other miners had lifted their table and, with it, a piece of the floor. A hole gaped beneath. Was this an escape route of some kind?
Melina knew exactly what it was. She climbed into the hole and disappeared into the darkness. Benny followed, throwing terrified glances over his shoulder. Quaid snapped out of his stasis and quickly lowered himself into the hole.
The miners replaced the table and resumed their game of poker just as Richter, Helm, and six soldiers charged into the bar, loaded for bear.
The card players looked at the armed men with mild curiosity. The scene was as quiet and peaceful as a bridge club on a slow Thursday afternoon, but Richter was not to be fooled. He knew that these subhuman creatures were protecting the man who had killed Lori and, by that action, they had forfeited their right to live. He didn’t care how many of them he had to kill in order to get the information he needed.
He grabbed Mary and held his gun to her head. It was the same gun that had taken the roof off of Benny’s cab. “Where’d they go?” he demanded.
“Who? I don’t know wha—” Mary’s head was blown from her shoulders. Richter threw her body aside and grabbed Thumbelina.
“Maybe you know,” he suggested, his voice cold with menace.
Before she could respond, Tony leaped in a flying tackle and knocked Richter to the floor. As Helm ran forward to take aim at Tony, Thumbelina reached up, gutting him from crotch to sternum with a bowie knife.
It was like setting a match to a keg of powder. The rest of the miners exploded into action, attacking the soldiers with fists, knives, guns, bottles, and beer mugs. By the time Richter struggled free of Tony’s grip, he saw that half of his men had been wiped out.
He dived through a window, guns firing after him. A large number of soldiers had assembled at the sound of gunfire and they covered his retreat with a hail of bullets.
Scuttling behind a barricade of cars wrecks and overflowing dumpsters, Richter made it to where a military vehicle had pulled up to disgorge more soldiers. Bullets whizzed by his ears as he dodged, feinted, and rolled his way toward the truck. It had a rocket launcher. Richter’s eyes gleamed. That would do the trick.
“You! Over here!” he commanded. He directed the launcher setup and was about to give the order to fire, when a soldier handed him a field videophone.
“Cohaagen,” the soldier said.
Richter gnashed his teeth as he took the call. “Sir…” he began, but Cohaagen interrupted him.
“Stop fighting and pull out.”
No, no, no, this couldn’t be happening. “They’re protecting Quaid!” Richter protested, his voice cracking with anger and astonishment.
“Perfect!” said Cohaagen. “Get out of Sector G. Now.” Before Richter could respond, Cohaagen added: “Don’t think. Do it.”
Richter saw the look in Cohaagen’s eye and choked back a retort. Cohaagen had something up his sleeve. Richter didn’t know what it was, but he knew it would be worse than anything the rocket launcher could propel. He followed orders.
Quaid dropped from the shaft into a tunnel and followed Melina and Benny. The tunnel appeared to be one artery of the vast mining complex that spread beneath the city in all directions. His suspicion was confirmed as he ran past miners chipping away at the rock walls with drill hammers. The miners ignored him. They seemed to be used to such sights.
The tunnel branched off into several others at an intersection on the far side of Venusville. Melina paused there for a brief moment to catch her breath, and almost stopped breathing altogether when a mechanical shudder shook the ground beneath their feet.
“My God,” she said, aghast. “The emergency pressure doors! They’re sealing us off from the rest of the city!”
No sooner had she spoken than—SQURRCHANG! A featureless metal door descended from the ceiling, closing the entrance to one of the tunnels in front of them. They rushed to the next one—too late!
Only one tunnel remained open. With the speed of desperation, they crouched, rolled, and dived under the last door just before it slammed into place. They’d made it!
The rebel survivors of the battle of The Last Resort peered cautiously though the jagged shards of glass that protruded from the bar’s shattered window frames. The soldiers had ceased firing a short time ago and now they appeared to be packing up and beating an orderly retreat. The rebels didn’t know what to make of it.
As the soldiers disappeared from view, the people of Venusville began emerging from whatever hole they’d hidden in during the battle. They spoke softly. Some looked dazed. Others looked suspicious. They were startled when the pressure doors clanged into place and no one knew what to expect next. A crowd gathered in the plaza, but it was strangely hushed. Then it got even quieter.
The giant fans which circulated air through the sector slowed and came to a stop. The silence was absolute. Every face filled with dread. Then…
The fans started turning again! Someone laughed with relief, but the laughter twisted into a strangled cry of despair as the papers that littered the square started flying upward, toward the great blades.
The fans were turning backwards! They were sucking the air out of Venusville!
Quaid stumbled as the tunnel opened out into a larger space. Melina took a flashlight from a shelf near the tunnel opening and shone it around an excavated chamber, illuminating the walls, which were honeycombed with niches.