He estimated that there would be five minutes at the most before the
area was flooded with S-men. The rest of the gamble hinged entirely on
what they succeeded in doing, or failed to do, within the space of a
few hundred heart-beats.
They made the roadside in little more than a minute after leaving the
ship. Terry and Mike lay prone in the wide drainage gutter, their
swords drawn, their bodies camouflaged by a few handfuls of hastily
hacked scrub brush.
Doug stood at the side of the superhighway, the power-pack at his feet,
his shredded cloak in his hands to wave.
The traffic seemed light for so late in the afternoon. The sun was hot,
and he was breathing heavily from the stumbling, desperate run across
the small, rutted field. The ship towered above what few trees there
were, and it marked them for a target.
A streamlined shape was racing toward him. It seemed to take all the
strength he had left to wave the cape, and he wondered if he were
waving it at searching S-men....
The vehicle sped by, whipping the cape in its undertow. It was going
nearly two hundred miles an hour, and there was no driver inside it. A
robot carrier.
Thirty seconds went by before the next one came. It was going slower,
and it too was driverless.
Doug glanced at the sky. To the west, high, tiny dots--
It was a full minute before the next one came. With both hands, cloak
dropped because it was too heavy, Doug waved, and the vehicle was
slowing.
"Ready, boys...." There was a slight rustle behind him as they came to
their knees.
The driver stopped his car almost abreast of him, and opened the
passenger door.
"What's the trouble? You crack up? While we're riding you can use the
autophone--"
Doug moved into the vehicle slowly, then lashed out at the man's
head with the smooth, heavy rock that was in his left hand. In his
exhaustion he struck only a glancing blow, and there was barely time
for a second, but the second connected, and the driver slumped, jammed
behind his semi-circular steering wheel.
"Mike, Terry--"
In a moment the helicopter would have him spotted, or an S-Council
patrol car would be braking beside him.
They hauled the driver out, left him at the road side. He was not
dead, and Doug was curiously thankful for that. He had killed one man
already....
He wasted a second for another glance at the sky. Closer now, and
it was obvious that they had spotted the ship. He had to get the
vehicle in motion somehow. A robot sped by, its air wake rocking
them slightly. He had the pack on the seat beside him, and Terry was
slamming the door.
No clutch or brake pedal. Only one pedal, and it could only be an
accelerator. But pivoted in the middle. There was no sound to the
engine, no way to tell if it were running because the only dash
instrument was a speed indicator.
He pressed the pedal forward. And they did not move. Backward, then....
It moved. In five seconds the speed needle was climbing past eighty,
going smoothly upward.
He wondered if they had been seen.
In a dash mirror he saw Terry and Mike turning their heads up, looking
through the curved transparent metal top.
"Must be a hunnerd of 'em--they're starting to land I think!"
"All of them?"
"I guess so--wait! Yeah, he's gonna land, too, I guess. I can't see 'em
anymore. Gosh, we're sure moving."
"Creepers, a hundred and _eighty_! Hey Dad, where are we going, anyway?"
"To the headquarters hospital building. I think--I think that's where
your mother is."
"Is she hurt?"
"I don't know, Mike, I don't know."
He pressed his heel to the floor-board. He was glad for Tayne's sword
at his side. Even for the ones the boys carried.
* * * * *
The sign said City of Washington, District of Columbia, Population
531,423. Speed Limit 55 MPH.
Doug raised his heel, the car slowed. He frowned. No road-blocks, no
pursuit! There had been plently of time since the helicopters had
landed--five, six minutes perhaps. They knew where he was going, and
were going to let him walk right into it, some neatly conceived trap at
the hospital. So they'd be sure to have him alive ... alive, to be used
as an example!
Savagely, he heeled the pedal down. Let them be waiting--they were
fools if they hadn't figured on the swords! Or--or he was a fool, for
counting on them.
The car's tires wailed as he rounded the long, curving turn that
brought him onto St. Jefferson Way, past the Payne Monument, and within
two blocks of the headquarters building hospital wing.
The traffic was thickening, planned of course to make things look as
natural as possible--not to arouse his suspicion at the last moment....
"Get those swords ready, kids...."
He heard them scrape from their scabbards.
And without warning the form of a woman darted into his path. He
swerved, jammed the pedal forward, and the car rocked sickenly.
And he had seen her face in that one awful second--it was Dot who had
fallen in the street behind him!
The boys were at his heels as he leapt from the car. There were
white-clad men rushing toward them, and he had Dot's form in his arms
as the first of them closed in.
There was the quick blink of sunlight on steel as Mike and Terry swung
their weapons.
And as though stunned, the men in white stopped short, suddenly silent,
awkwardly-poised statues.
Doug knew the spell would last for seconds at best. The half-naked boys
stood grimly, feet wide apart, sword-hilts grasped in both hands.
Doug, with Dot's limp body in his arms, broke for the car.
"Come on!"
And Terry and Mike were at his heels. The men in white broke their
frozen ranks then and swarmed over the small area of street that the
two broadswords had commanded for the telling few seconds.
Doug bolted the vehicle into motion. And then they were free.
"What dopes," Mike was saying. "Were they scared! I bet they didn't
figure we'd be ready to fight 'em! But who did we--?"
"Boys, see what you can do for your mother. It is your mother, she just
looks different, like we do...."
"Mother--"
"Hurry up. She's just fainted, that's all. We didn't hit her."
* * * * *
Dot was conscious when they arrived at the house, and she was managing
to speak.
"Are they--"
"The boys, yes Dot. Our boys. Now look, we've got to run for it. I'll
carry you, and you hang on to the pack.... Mike, Terry--"
"Ready, Dad. Will there be many?"
"I don't know. Maybe none, but if there aren't, it'll only be for a
very few minutes. Let's go!"
They ran, and the boys burst through the front door with their swords
lunging at emptiness.
"The cellar!"
He heard them clamber down the steel stairs.
"It's O.K. Dad--come on!"
Dot's face was white, and her eyes were open wide. He carried her as
gently as he could, but she had never been so terribly heavy in his
arms.
It happened at the cellar doorway, at the top of the stairs.
He stumbled, fought for balance, fell to one knee, clutched hard and
Dot screamed.
But he held her, and her arms were choking at his neck.
And there was a crashing, clanging noise as the power-pack fell from
her, caromed from step to step, and lay finally in a shattered ruin on
the cellar floor.