“His behavior has been puzzling in other ways. That is why I ask, Why didn’t you call the gate earlier?”
“Sir?”
“Your behavior is as puzzling as Hobart’s, Watts. Why did you assume it would take Hobart half an hour to reach your office?”
“Oh.” Watts fidgeted. “Well, Hobart said this bird came right up to the gate and started banging on it with a rock. When Hobart didn’t show right away, I thought he must have stopped off to question the prisoner, find out why he did it. After all,” he explained hastily, “if he brought the bird straight to me, he’d likely never find out what he was doing banging on the gate.”
“Very logical. Did it occur to you at any point that the ‘bird’ might have overpowered Hobart?”
“But Hobart had a sonic!”
“Watts, have you ever been on a raid?”
“No, sir. How could I?”
“A man came back from the raid of night-before-last with the bones of his nose spread all over his face. He, too, had a sonic.”
“Yessir, but that was a raid, sir.”
Jesus Pietro sighed. “Thank you, Master Sergeant. Will you step outside, please? Your bird should be arriving any minute.”
Watts left, his relief showing.
He’d made a good point, thought Jesus Pietro, though not the one he’d intended. Probably all the Hospital guards had the same idea: that a gun was ipso facto invincible. Why not? The Hospital guards had never been on a raid in the colonist regions. Few had ever seen a colonist who wasn’t unconscious. Occasionally Jesus Pietro staged mock raids with guards playing the part of colonists. They didn’t mind, particularly; mercy-weapons were not unpleasant. But the men with the guns always won. All the guards’ experience told them that the gun was king, that a man who had a gun need fear nothing but a gun.
What to do? Interchange guards and raiders long enough to give the guards some experience? No, the elite raiders would never stand for that.
Why was he worrying about Implementation?
Had the Hospital ever been attacked? Never, on Alpha Plateau. A colonist force had no way to get there.
But Keller had.
He used the phone. “Jansen, find out who was on guard at the Alpha-Beta Bridge last night. Wake them up and send them here.”
“It will be at least fifteen minutes, sir.”
“Fine.”
How had Keller gotten past them? There had been one aircar on Gamma Plateau, but it had been destroyed. With the pilot still in it? Had Keller had a chauffeur? Or…would a colonist know how to use the autopilot?
Where the Mist Demons was Keller!
Jesus Pietro began to pace the room. He had no cause for worry, yet he worried. Instinct? He didn’t believe he had instincts. The phone spoke in his secretary’s voice. “Sir, did you order two guards?”
“Bridge guards?”
“No, sir. Intrahospital guards.”
“No.”
“Thank you.” Click.
Something had set off the grounds alarms last night. Not a rabbit. Keller might have tried the wall first. If the grounds guards had let a prisoner escape, then faked a report—he’d have their hides!
“Sir, these guards insist you sent for them.”
“Well, I damn well didn’t. Tell them—just a minute. Send them in.”
They came, two burly men whose submissive countenances unsuccessfully hid their ire at being made to wait.
“When did I send for you?” asked Jesus Pietro.
The big one said, “Twenty minutes ago,” daring Jesus Pietro to call him a liar.
“Were you supposed to pick up a prisoner first?”
“No, sir. We took Hobart to the vivarium, put him to beddybye and came straight back.”
“You don’t remember being—”
The smaller guard went white. “D—Dave! We were supposed to p—pick up someone. Keeler. Something Keeler.”
Jesus Pietro regarded them for a full twenty seconds. His face was curiously immobile. Then he opened the intercom. “Major Jansen. Sound ‘Prisoners Loose.’”
“Wait a minute,” said Matt.
The tail end of the colonist swarm was leaving them behind. Hood brought himself up short. “What are you doing?”
Matt dodged back into the vivarium. One man lay on his face with his headset on. Probably he’d thought he was safe once he was out of the couch. Matt snatched the headset off and slapped him twice, hard; and when his eyelids fluttered, Matt pulled him to his feet and pushed him at the door.
Watson and Chek finished pushing buttons and left, running, shoving around Hood.
“Come on!” Hood yelled from the doorway. Panic was in his voice. But Matt stood rooted by the thing on the floor.
The guard. They’d tom him to pieces!
Matt was back in the organ banks, frozen rigid by horror.
“Keller!”
Matt stooped, picked up something soft and wet. His expression was very strange. He stepped to the door, hesitated a moment, then drew two sweeping arcs and three small closed curves on its gleaming metal surface. He hurled the warm thing backhand, turned, and ran. The two men and Laney charged down the hall, trying to catch the swarm.
The swarm poured down the stairs like a waterfall: a close-packed mass, running and stumbling against each other and brushing against walls and banisters and generally making a hell of a lot of noise. Harry Kane led. A cold certainty was in his heart, the knowledge that he would be first to fall when they met the first armed guard. But by then the swarm should have unstoppable momentum.
The first armed guard was several yards beyond the first corner. He turned and stared as if his eyes beheld a miracle. He hadn’t moved when the mob reached him. Someone actually had the sense to take his gun. A tall blond man got it and immediately forced his way to the front, waving it and yelling for room. The swarm flowed around and over the limp Implementation policeman.
This hallway was long, lined with doors on both sides. Every door seemed to be swinging open at once. The man with the gun closed his fist on the trigger and waved it slowly up and down the hall. Heads peered out the doors, paused, and were followed by falling bodies. The colonist swarm slowed to pick their way around the crewish and half-crewish fallen. Nonetheless, the fallen were all badly or mortally injured when the swarm passed. Implementation used mercy-weapons because they needed their prisoners intact. The swarm had no such motive for mercy.
The swarm was stretching now, dividing the fast from the slow, as Kane reached the end of the hall. He rounded the turn in a clump of six.
Two police were parked indolently against opposite walls, steaming cups in their hands, their heads turned to see where the noise was coming from. For a magic moment they stayed that way…and then their cups flew wide, trailing spiral nebulae of brown fluid, and their guns came up like flowing light. Harry Kane fell with a buzzing in his ears. But his last glimpse of the corridor showed him that the police were falling too.
He lay like a broken doll, with his head swimming and his eyes blurring and his body, as numb as a frozen plucked chicken. Feet pounded past and over him. Through the blanketing numbness he dimly sensed himself being kicked.
Abruptly four hands gripped his wrists and ankles, and he was off again, swaying and jouncing between his rescuers. Harry Kane was pleased. His opinion of mobs was low. This mob was behaving better than he had expected. Through the buzzing in his ears he heard a siren.
At the bottom of the stairs they reached the tail of the swarm—Laney in the lead, Matt and Jay Hood following. Matt panted, “Stay! Got…gun.”
Laney saw the point and slowed. Matt could guard the rear. If they tried to reach the front of the swarm, they’d be stuck in the middle, and the sonic would be useless.
But nobody came at them from the rear. There were noises ahead, and they passed sprawled bodies: one policeman, then a string of men and women in lab smocks. Matt found his stomach trying to turn inside out. The rebels’ viciousness was appalli
ng. So was Hood’s grin: a tight killer’s grin, making a lie of his scholar’s face.
Ahead, more commotion. Two men stopped to lift a heavy sprawled figure and continued running. Harry Kane was out of the action. “Hope somebody’s leading them!” Hood shouted.
A siren blared in the corridors. It was loud enough-to wake the Mist Demons, to send them screaming into the sky for a little peace. It jarred the concrete; it shook the very bones of a man. There was a rattling clang, barely heard above the siren. An iron door bad dropped into the swarm, cutting it in two. One man was emphatically dead beneath it. The tail of the swarm, including perhaps a dozen men and women, washed against the steel door and rebounded.
Trapped. The other end of the corridor was also blocked. But doors lined both sides. One man took off, running down the hallway toward the far end, swiveling his head back and forth to look briefly through the open doors, ignoring the closed ones. “Here!” he shouted, waving an arm. Wordlessly the others followed.
It was a lounge, a relaxation room, furnished with four wide couches, scattered chairs, two card tables, and a huge coffee dispenser. And a picture window. As Matt reached the door, the window already gaped wide, showing sharp glass teeth. The man who’d found the room was using a chair to clean the glass away.
An almost soundless hum—and Matt felt the numbness of a sonic beamer. From the doorway! He slammed the door and it stopped.
Automatics?
“Benny!” Laney shouted, picking up one end of a couch. The man at the window dropped his chair and ran to take the other end. He’d been one of Laney’s escorts the night of the party. Together they dropped the couch across the windowsill, over the broken glass. Colonists began to climb over it.
Hood had found a closet and opened it. It was like opening Pandora’s box. Matt saw half-a-dozen men in white smocks swarm over Hood. In seconds they would have torn him to ribbons. Matt used his sonic. They all went down in a lump, including Hood. Matt pulled him out, draped him over a shoulder, and followed the others over the couch. Hood was heavier than he looked.
Matt had to drop him on the grass and follow him down. Far across the lawn was the Hospital wall, leaning outward, the top laced with wires that leaned inward. Very thin wire, just barely visible through the thin fog. Matt picked Hood up, glanced around, saw the others running alongside the building with the tall man named Benny in the lead. He staggered after them.
They reached a corner—the Hospital seemed to have a million corners—stopped sharply, and backed up, milling. Guards coming? Matt put Hood down, hefted his sonic—
A gun and hand emerged questing from the broken picture window. Matt fired and the man slumped. But he knew there must be others in there. Matt ducked beneath the window, rose suddenly, and fired in. Half-a-dozen police fired back. Matt’s right side and arm went numb; he dropped the gun, then himself dropped below the sill. In a moment they’d be peering over. The man named Benny was running toward him. Matt threw the first policeman’s sonic to him and picked up his own with his left hand.
The men inside hadn’t expected Benny. They were trying to fire over the sill at Matt, and to do that they had to lean out. In half a minute it was over.
Benny said, “There’s a carport just beyond that corner. Guarded.”
“Do they know we’re here?”
“I don’t think so. The Mist Demons have given us a mist.” Benny smiled at his own pun.
“Good. We can use these guns. You’ll have to carry Jay; my arm’s out.”
“Jay’s the only one who can fly.”
“I can,” said Matt.
“Major Jansen. Sound ‘Prisoners Loose.’”
The sound of the siren came instantly, even before Jesus Pietro could change his mind. For a moment he was sure, preternaturally sure, that he’d made a fool of himself. This could cost him much face…
But no. Keller must be freeing the prisoners. Keller wasn’t here; therefore Keller was free. His first move would be to free the other Sons of Earth. If the vivarium guard had stopped him, he would then have called here; he hadn’t called; hence Keller had succeeded.
But if Keller were harmlessly asleep in the vivarium? Nonsense. Why had the guards forgotten about him? They were behaving too much like Hobart had behaved last night. A miracle had been worked, a miracle of the kind Jesus Pietro was beginning to associate with Keller. There must be some purpose to it.
It must have been used to free Keller.
And the halls must be full of angry rebels.
That was very bad. Implementation had motives for using mercy-weapons. Rebels had none—neither mercy-weapons nor mercy-motives. They’d kill whoever got in their way.
The steel doors would be in place now, vibrating in sleep-producing frequencies. By now the danger would be over—almost certainly. Unless the rebels had first gotten out of the halls.
But what damage had they done already?
“Come with me,” Jesus Pietro told the two guards. He marched toward the door. “Keep your guns drawn,” he added over his shoulder.
The guards snapped out of their stupor and ran to catch up. They had not the faintest idea what was going on, but Jesus Pietro was sure they’d recognize a colonist in time to down him. They’d be adequate protection.
One dozen colonists, two stunned. Seven captured guns.
Matt stayed hidden behind the corner, reluctantly obeying Benny’s orders. With him were the two women: Laney and a deep-voiced middle-aged tigress named Lydia Hancock, and the two fallen: Jay Hood and Harry Kane.
Matt would have fought the carport guards, but he couldn’t fight the logic. Because he was the only one who could fly a car, he had to stay behind while the others charged out onto the field with their sonics going.
The carport was a big, flat expanse of lawn, a variant of mutant grass, which could take an infinite amount of trampling. Lines of near-white crossed the green, outlining landing targets. The white too was grass. Cars rested near the centers of two of the targets. Men moved about the cars, servicing them and removing metal canisters from the underbellies. The mist hung four feet above the grass under diffuse sunlight, curling about the rebels as they ran.
They were halfway to the cars when someone on the Hospital wall swung a spotlight-sized sonic toward them. The rebels dropped immediately, like hay before a scythe. So did the mechanics around the cars. Unconscious men lay scattered across the carport field with the mist curling around them.
Matt pulled his head back as the big sonic-swung toward the corner. Even so, he felt the numbness, faint and far-off, matching the deadwood feeling in his right arm. “Shall we wait till they turn it off, then run for it?”
“I think they’ve got us,” said Laney.
“Stop that!” Mrs. Hancock rapped savagely. Matt had first met her fifteen minutes ago and had never seen her without her present enraged expression. She was a fierce one, bulky and homely, a natural for any cause. “They haven’t got us until they take us!”
“Something keeps people from seeing me sometimes,” said Matt. “If you want to risk it, and if you all stay close to me, it may protect us all.”
“Crack’ unner strain.” Hood’s voice was slurred, barely comprehensible. Only his eyes moved to watch Matt. Harry, too, was awake, alert, and immobile.
“It’s true, Hood. I don’t know why, but it’s true. I think it must be a psi power.”
“Wreebody who blieves in psi things hees psygic.”
“The sonic’s off us,” said Laney.
“My arm’s dead. Laney, you and Mrs.—”
“Call me Lydia.”
“You and Lydia put Hood over my left shoulder, the pick up Harry. Stay right by me. We’ll be walking, remember. Don’t try to hide. If we get shot, I’ll apologize when I get the chance.”
“’Pologise now.”
“Okay, Hood. I’m sorry I got us all killed.”
“’Sawrigh’.”
“Let’s go.”
The Bleeding Heart
r /> VIIWhen they see this…Jesus Pietro shuddered. He watched his own guards shrink back, unwilling to enter, unable to look away. They’ll think a little less of their guns when they see this!
The vivarium guard had certainly had a gun. Probably he hadn’t thought to draw it in time.
He’d get no second chance.
He was like something spilled from an organ-bank conveyor tank.
Hobart, dead near the back of the vivarium, was no prettier. Jesus Pietro felt a stab of guilt. He hadn’t meant Hobart for such a fate.
Aside from the bodies, the vivarium was empty. Naturally.
Jesus Pietro looked once more around him—and his eyes found the door and the dark scrawl on its bright steel surface.
It was a symbol of some kind; he was sure of that. But of what? The symbol of the Sons of Earth was a circle containing a streamlined outline of the American super-continent. This was nothing like it, nor was it like anything he knew of. But it had unmistakably been drawn in human blood.
Two wide arcs, bilaterally symmetrical. Three small closed curves underneath, like circles with tails. Tadpoles? Some microorganism?
Jesus Pietro rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Later he’d ask the prisoners. Best forget it for now.
“Assume they took the fastest route to the main entrance,” he said aloud. If the guards were surprised to hear him thus lecture himself, they reacted as Major Jansen had long since learned to react. They said nothing “Come,” said Jesus Pietro.
Left, right, down the stairs…a dead policeman sprawled in the hall, his Implementation uniform as torn and ruined as himself. Jesus Pietro passed him without breaking his juggernaut stride. He reached steel emergency doors and used his ultrasonic whistle. As the doors went up, his guards tensed.
Two pitiful rows of maimed and dead, and another steel door at the other end. The dead were like an explosion in the organ banks. That was definitely the way to think of them. It would not do to consider that these having been human beings under Jesus Pietro’s protection. Most had not even been police, but civilians: doctors and electricians.
What a valuable lesson the Hospital guards would learn from this! Jesus Pietro felt sick. It showed only in his unusual pallor; but that he could not control. He marched down the corridor with his expression held remotely aloof. The steel doors went up as he approached.