"If everyone's satisfied maybe we can get this thing finished."
A squad from the surface manhandled the number-one Marriot from the elevator. It was twelve feet long and eighteen inches thick, painted black with an orange stripe around the warhead. For ease of handling it was mounted on the most abbreviated version of its launch cradle. The presence of the outsiders had a bizarre effect on the bunker inmates with whom they came into contact. They were afflicted by a diffidence that Vickers would never have expected. They treated them as if they were from another planet. He had actually watched hardened bunker military back away from the first outsiders to enter the bottoms. He realized that the whole bunker was about to go into its second traumatic shock. Losing the world had been bad enough, finding it again might prove to be altogether too much. Vickers began to realize what Eight-Man had meant by rehab and psych. He also realized that it would be a pure arrogance to think that he'd be immune to it. The best he could do was to shelve the worst symptoms until after the bunker was secure. All he wanted to do was to fire the missile and get it over with.
The second rocket was coming out of another elevator. For their part, the outsiders did their best to accentuate the difference between themselves and the people in the bunker. They kept their faces covered with visors and breathing masks as though they considered the air in the bunker tainted and unfit to breathe. Inside the tunnels of the other side of the piazza, the defenders seemed to sense that something was going on. They kept up a sporadic sniping that forced everyone to keep their heads down while the missiles were readied. Their gun crews had developed the knack of being able to lay fire exactly along the top of the incline that led down to the elevators. It meant that there was not only the danger of being hit by a bullet but also the constant irritant of flying splinters of marble. The defenders had one other trick. Now and again a suicide volunteer would sprint out of one of the tunnels clutching a grenade launcher. He or she would try to drop a grenade onto the area by the elevators before one of the attackers dropped him. Parkwood had lost no less than ten men to these random attacks. Vickers' chief worry was that a grenade might ignite one of the rockets before it could be fired. Fortunately the suicide attacks had become markedly fewer. Vickers could only conclude with some relief that Lloyd-Ransom was running short of volunteers.
The pair of Marriots was set up just below the edge of the incline. The fire control box had been placed behind a wall of sandbags. With the exception of a handful of troops who remained to keep up a token fire, everyone was evacuated to the upper levels. Those who stayed were issued with heavy duty ear protectors. When a Marriot went off in an enclosed space, the noise would be quite literally deafening. Once the preparations were complete, Vickers and Parkwood crawled up the incline and lay beside the missiles for a final look around. Parkwood still held onto his doubts.
"Are you sure this isn't going to bring down the roof?"
Vickers patted the Marriot. He was starting to enjoy the recklessness of overkill.
"I'm not sure but I'm pretty certain that the odds are in our favor. The way I see it, the missile should punch a hole in the outer wall but not detonate until it's right in the middle of Lloyd-Ransom's apartment complex. There should be enough substructure in there to soak up the blast before it does any real harm."
"I wish I had your optimism."
"Can you think of a better way?"
"No."
"So let's get to it."
On a sudden impulse, Vickers raised himself up and sprayed the tunnel entrances with his Yasha. The action was so out of character that he surprised himself as well as Parkwood.
"What's the matter with you?"
"I guess I'm getting light-headed."
Parkwood waved back the last handful of troops, then he and Vickers scrambled down the slope themselves. They all took shelter in another sandbagged elevator. This final withdrawal was the signal to the rocket crew to start the brief countdown. Parkwood hit the elevator control panel and the doors slid shut. After that there was nothing left to do but wait. The first noise was the roar of the chemical rocket. Vickers clamped his hands over his ear protectors. There was a brief moment of silence and then it seemed as though the whole world had exploded. The entire bunker shuddered. The elevator car bounced on its cables. For a moment it felt as though the cables were going to snap. There was a small window in the elevator door. Its glass blew inward. A terrible rumbling went on and on. Parkwood opened the door and peered out. Glass and masonry were cascading down from the outside of the wide central airshaft. Parkwood looked back in horror.
"Damn it Vickers, it looks like you've caved in the roof."
"It's okay! It's okay!" The last large section of masonry crashed down to the piazza and then there was quiet. Rolling billows of dust filled the air, obscuring everything like a dense fog, but no more of the structure collapsed. The roof was intact. Vickers and Parkwood emerged from the elevator with handkerchiefs pressed to their faces.
"You think there's anyone left alive in there?"
"We'll soon see."
Another set of elevator doors opened and the evacuated bunker troops streamed back into the bottoms. It wasn't only soldiers and security. A full cross section of the bunker population was crowded in with them, a spectrum of colored coveralls and uniforms. Ignoring the choking dust, the heaps of jagged rubble and the possibility of further collapses, they surged across the ruined piazza, angry running figures in the dust and smoke.
"Should we try and stop them?"
"Just try it. They're mad as hell. I doubt a bomb would stop them."
While Vickers and Eight-Man had been out on the surface, word had run through the bunker that their long and unpleasant confinement had been without the slightest of valid reasons. In the end, the multiplying welter of conflicting stories forced Parkwood to go on the air and give a condensed version of the true situation. The varied panic instantly changed to a single, common fury. When the outsiders were first seen on the public video screens, the terrible news was absolutely confirmed. Parkwood was compelled to split his force and send more than half of his people to hold back the mobs who were massing in from the elevators on all levels. The mood had rapidly escalated to one of bloody revenge. Everyone wanted to get down to the bottoms and carve a piece of Lloyd-Ransom or one of his last-stand followers.
More elevator doors hissed open and another crowd from the upper levels swarmed out to add to the chaos. The major in charge of the outsiders fought his way to where Vickers and Parkwood were standing, letting it all swirl around them.
"Shouldn't we do something about this? If there's anyone left alive in that mess they're going to be slaughtered. This is a lynch mob."
Parkwood nodded.
"That's what it is."
"And you're going to do nothing?"
"If you want to save those bastards with your own people, feel free. Frankly, I don't give a damn."
Vickers had found himself a breathing mask.
"I'm going in there. I want to get to Lloyd-Ransom and Lutesinger before the mob does."
Parkwood looked around for a mask of his own.
"I'm coming with you."
Eggy and Yabu were still standing nearby. Parkwood beckoned to them.
"We're going inside, you want to come with us?"
Both indicated grim agreement. The outside major was still agitating.
"Something has to be done."
"Then do it!"
As they spoke, there was an eruption of yelling and howling from the other side of the piazza. A number of dazed and blackened figures had stumbled out of the ruins. The mob immediately set upon them. The major was gathering up his troops. He led them toward the center of the disturbance. Vickers, Parkwood, Yabu and Eggy followed behind, letting them clear a path through the angry mob. There was ugliness in the shattered tunnels and there were fires burning deep in the complex. Figures reeled from the smoke, but no sooner did they come into sight than they were seized by the crowd that was pouring in from the elevators. There were very few gunshots; the first people into the tunnels were mainly handlers and facers armed with clubs, knives or razors. The lack of gunfire was more than compensated for by a non-stop chorus of truly horrible screams. It was a scene from hell that the outside major and his men only served to confuse with their largely ineffectual efforts to save the lives of Lloyd-Ransom's surrendering followers. There was a frenzy about the attackers that went beyond even the most deep-rooted anger. It was like they were, at the same time, working out their own guilt for all that had happened in the bunker and all the bizarre dreams that had been dreamed there.