"He said you'd be difficult."
* * * * *
Alston shook his head impatiently. "I don't mean that. If he asks me
to go, I haven't much choice. But the rescue party idea is insane. If
there were survivors, they're dead now. It would take a large army to
comb the Tihar, and even then, if the natives wanted to hide something,
there are plenty of ratholes in the cities of the swamp area. You could
never find anyone, except by accident. Aside from that, parts of the
forest are deadly with radioactivity. You might not recognize your
sister if you found her."
"But you will help us?" Kial Nasron pleaded.
Alston temporized. "I'll talk to Hailard." He brushed past the girl and
reached the elevators.
A robot-attended elevator took him up. Director Hailard's office was
on one of the upper floors.
During the ascent, memory snapped back like a rubber band and flicked
him viciously in the face. He turned sick and dizzy as six years
unreeled backwards in his mind like a reversed reel of film. Memories
of Annelle and her promises, her father and his glib treachery. The
trial. His own indecision in the emergency, following orders until too
late to save his shipmates.
The past faded from his mind, assumed its relation to present
realities. For four years he had planned escape, schooling himself to
bleak patience, disciplining himself into an automaton, so that he
would execute the necessary motions blindly. Now was the time, his last
chance. The Nasrons and their problems did not exist for him any more.
Forget them. Nothing was changed. His margin was dangerously thin.
See Hailard, quickly. Get it over. His fingers toyed with the tube of
extract in his pocket. Then--
Hailard was busy on the visiphone as Alston knocked and entered. He
nodded grimly. Alston settled himself in the victim's chair and waited.
Evidently the report was not up from psycho.
The office was no different from a thousand others on Venus; decorated
in tasteless, exotic luxury, it was meant to impress the important
tourists or visiting Company officials. Alston was not impressed, but
he liked the man enthroned like an idol behind a desk of chromium
and magnificent Kru-leather. Older than he looked, the director had
been a man of action, one of the real explorers of Venus after he had
turned from the putty-soft civilization of Earth. Hailard clung to the
reins of power and enjoyed contact with his dangerous charges. Alston
half-sensed a secret sympathy for his own bleak anger.
Hailard rang off quickly and glowered at Alston. "That was Kial Nasron.
She says you claim to have forgotten all connection with her family in
the past. Is that correct?"
"That's what I told her," Alston fenced warily. "Sometimes a convict
prefers to forget his past contacts. Besides, after four months in
Tihar, a man is entitled to a convenient fit of amnesia."
Hailard classified and accepted the implied possibilities. "If you mean
that it's wiser to overlook remembered grudges, you may be right.
I'm not sure her father will want your help. Kial was away at school
when you got into trouble, and knew very little about it or you. Her
father's memory may be longer. I didn't realize any connection until I
checked your files, or I'd never have suggested you. Either way, you're
still the only man for the job. If they ask for you, what will you do?"
"You're asking me?"
"You don't have to answer. I can't order you to go. Neither can Torkeg
Nasron. I want you to know your rights, that's all."
Alston was painfully aware of passing time. In imagination he could see
the gigantic robot calculators at work in the psychograph laboratory,
adding up his brain-wave patterns and collating other evidence to a
danger-red question mark.
"I'll decide after they've asked me," he said hurriedly. "Now do you
want my report on Tihar?"
Hailard studied him shrewdly. "Forget it. Kial Nasron will be here in
a couple of minutes. I'd better tell her more about you, in case she
prefers to make other arrangements."
"Good," Alston laughed. "I need some rest. Four months in Tihar is too
long. I've felt ill. Nearly passed out in the psycho room...."
Then he was out the door and on his way to the elevators. It was now or
never. The tube was in his fingers; a quick jab with the built-in hypo
needle. His thumb pressed the plunger and the job was done. Forcing
open the elevator door, he tossed the empty tube down the echoing
shaft. A car was coming up, but it might not stop on this floor. It
was essential that his body be discovered at once. Waves of whirling
black nausea roared through him. His last conscious act was to smash an
automatic thermocouple fire alarm.
The elevator door was opening. Kial Nasron stood framed against the
interior of the car. Her mouth was open in a scream.
Alston's body crumpled suddenly. Light exploded into intolerable bright
fragments in his brain. Darkness, endless, complete....
Sharp awake, naked, covered with rough canvas, Alston lay on a slab.
Consciousness had returned suddenly. By instinct, fingers reached for
his dogtag. It had been removed. His death had been accepted.
Bewildered, he evaluated his surroundings. This was not the vault for
bodies consigned to the incinerator. Something had gone wrong.
Explanation came to him. His lips twisted in wry grimace. Of course,
all bodies were tested for radioactivity, especially those of convicts
who worked in the Tihar Forest. Prolonged exposure had caused
pathological change in his body. Enough to arouse clinical curiosity.
He had been brought to the dissecting laboratory. This was an unlooked
for development. It complicated his escape plan.
It was a large, bare room. Around him were other slabs set on trestles,
each occupied by a covered, shapeless form. At the far end, in an
alcove were curious flickering lights. Patterns of movement resolved
into figures cowled and draped in radiation-proof armor. It was easy to
guess at their tasks.
A figure moved toward him through the labyrinth of benches and slabs.
At intervals the attendant paused over an uncovered body, extending a
hand-sized radiation detector over the lump of cold flesh. After each
test, the robed and hooded attendant made a notation in his notebook
and marked the chart on each slab. In breathless strain, Alston watched
the man's progress toward him.
From the alcove came the whine of an atomic bone-saw, nagging Alston's
nerves.
The attendant was close. Alston's turn was next. Eyes closed, he lay
still, taking one deep breath and holding it till his brain neared
bursting. He sensed physical nearness. A shadow crossed his eyelids.
The attendant bent above him, extending the detector. Its buzzer
snarled angrily. Canvas rustled, was withdrawn.
Alston moved. His arm curved in one slashing arc. It was a trick blow
learned in his space academy days. One swift slash with the edge of
a hand could paralyze a man, stun him for hours. Alston caught the
falling body and rolled with it to the tiles.
In silence he dragged the unconscious man under the slab and
rapidly stripped off his robes. Swiftly, quietly, Alston donned
the radiation-proof garments. The body was hard to lift, but with a
minimum of noise and bustle, he got it to the slab, replaced the canvas
covering. For jewelled seconds, he waited to see if this disturbance
had been noted from the alcove.
Steeling himself to patience, Alston pretended to continue the task
of the attendant, working his way from slab to slab and slowly edging
toward the swing doors at the end of the loft. It was a grueling,
nerve-tightening process. At the last slab he paused, darting a quick
survey at the activities within the far alcove. Attention there seemed
to be focused upon an immense vat in which flickering lights played.
Boldly, Alston stepped through the door.
From a small landing a spiral ramp descended. It was the one visible
exit.
As he remembered, the clinical laboratories and dissecting rooms
occupied the two top floors, beneath the landing stages on the roof
of the VE Building. Apparently there was no direct outlet to the roof
from this landing. He would have to risk a descent to the office-floors
below. It was a long chance, garbed as he was, but there seemed no help
for it. His robes and cowl might disguise him but they were sure to
attract attention. He must get other clothes somehow before making his
break.
His previous escape plan dealt with the underground tunnels connecting
the various buildings. Now a new plan must be made up as he went along,
grasping whatever opportunity arose. Probably the best trick would be
to reach the roof-landings by elevator and try to steal a 'copter.
Down the ramp he went, abandoning stealth. The first landing he reached
was empty, but seemed to open into laboratory rooms. Down again. The
ramp opened into a corridor leading to a central landing. Alston tried
to remember if Hailard's office were on the floor just under the lofts.
At any rate, there were elevators here.
Pressing a stud, he waited for the whine of the car. One was ascending,
but he could not guess how close it was.
Waiting, he pressed close against the wall, out of vision range of the
opening door. A weapon would be a help, but he might as well wish for
the moon.
A hiss of releasing air announced the elevator cage. Silently the door
opened, and a humanoid robot emerged. Blank but sensitive metallic eyes
fixed on Alston.
* * * * *
Suddenly alarms rang through the echoing corridors. A blinker red
signal flashed in the cage, its reflection a splash of blood on
the polished frame. The robot hesitated, reaching for the portable
transmitter to report below for instructions. Alston barked quick
command. Half-turned, the robot touched the transmitter. Alston struck.
His fist crashed into the face plate, numbing his arms to the elbow.
A jingle of small mechanical parts rained inside the robot, but the
automaton caught at the man. Man and machine fell in a loud tangle,
locked in savage, struggling embrace. Alston broke free and smashed
in the face plate with a series of blows. His fingers clawed at
intricacies of wiring inside. Acrid smoke and a smell of scorched
insulation spiralled forth. The robot sprawled in weirdly human
attitude of death.
No use now to descend. Hope of bypassing the guarded lower floors to
the tunnels must be abandoned. And unarmed, he could not hope to get
past the guards on the roof-landings. The alarm was out.
Inside the cage, he jammed the controls on nonstop descent and sprang
back to the landing. Forcing shut the safety door released the car for
a shrieking express drop. Uncontrolled, it would crash into fearful
wreckage at the tunnel levels.
It would confuse the search momentarily while the debris was examined
for his body.
He looked quickly around the landing, found a tablet numbering the
rooms and giving directions. He was on the floor of Hailard's office.
It gave him an idea. Perhaps he could hold the director as hostage for
his escape. At least it would be no worse than his present predicament.
Hailard's office would be the last place they would expect him.
He hurried down the corridor.
Hailard's door was closed. Alston flung it open and leaped inside. Kial
Nasron and the director faced each other across the desk. Both faces
froze, staring at the intrusion. Hailard's hand dipped toward an open
drawer.
In tigerish movement, Alston scooped girl and chair from the floor and
flung them over the desk into Hailard's lap. The heat gun flamed at
random, melting a section of plastic wall. Alston sprang, went over the
desk top into a belly-slide. All three of them crashed in a squirming
heap on the floor.
Alston wrenched free first and came up with the heat gun in his hand.
Pale and furious, Kial Nasron writhed back to the wall, glaring at the
man. Hailard sat up, staring in dazed fixation at the pointing gun.
"It won't do you any good, Alston," he said. "Security police are
searching the building."
"We'll see about that," Alston grinned at the girl. "Mr. Hailard and I
are exchanging clothes."
After the exchange, Alston smashed the visiphone and inter-office
communicator.
"The lady is leaving with me," he warned the director. "So use
judgment. If anything happens to me, it happens to her. If anyone gets
in my way, I'll blast through. Is that clear?"