"I should killing you," he said. "Right now, I should killing you. Then
maybe killing me. Or make boom." He laughed shrilly, almost
hysterically. "You very cleverish. Finding one weakener. Tell polices
bringing dogs."
"Why, no," I said. "As a matter of fact, I told the dogs to bring the
police."
That caught his interest. His hand on the blaster relaxed enough so that
I could breath.
"That call I made from the car, coming here," I said. "It wasn't to the
police. After the results of my first call to them, I thought it was
just possible that you had somehow telenized all the desk sergeants. I
wasn't thinking too sharp just then. Anyway, I called the city dog
pound, instead. I told 'em to get as many dogs out here as fast as they
possibly could."
Blekeke spoke in a very soft voice. "Cleverly, cleverly. And I giving
self way."
"You sure did," I agreed. "There's dogs in every damn vision you dream
up, you hate 'em so much. Same way some people have snakes."
Blekeke gestured with the blaster. He had regained some of his color,
and he wasn't trembling. "Getting up now. We leaving. Not kill if not
necessary."
Maxwell and I stood up. Blekeke backed through the door, motioning for
us to follow. He walked us ahead of him along a corridor and down two
flights of stairs, staying a safe distance behind us.
The entrance to the tunnel was in the basement, through a door that
looked like any other door.
Blekeke took off the earphones he was wearing and tossed them aside.
"This 'nizer blow up with house," he said.
The tunnel was wide, straight and brightly lighted. The opposite end was
a small black dot, but it didn't take us long to get there.
My thoughts were running wild, now that no one was listening.
The dogs had bothered Blekeke, but how badly? He seemed so damned sure
of himself now. No hesitation at all. Or--was it merely resignation? I
didn't know. But if he once got us aboard that spaceship, his plan had a
ridiculously good chance of succeeding.
... And would that be so bad? Were his motives so ignoble, or his
methods so very atrocious?
I drove that line of thought from my mind. I could think about that
later....
* * * * *
From the outside entrance of the tunnel, the dark spaceship seemed
disturbingly close, and the expanse between it and us free of
impediments of any kind. Only fifty or sixty quick steps, and then....
The Martians at the ship saw us and climbed aboard. The ship was
beginning to vibrate again.
The two policemen were wandering around by the water's edge. We could
hear the dogs howling. Several others had joined in now, but we couldn't
see them. They were above us.
"Walk slow to ship," Blekeke instructed, tenseness obvious in his voice.
"Casual. Like nothing. I right behind."
Maxwell and I glanced at each other and stepped from the aperture to the
gravelly beach and started walking very slowly and casually toward the
spaceship.
We had gone about ten feet when we heard, in the short intervals when
the dogs weren't howling, the crunching footsteps of Blekeke behind us.
They were faltering.