The big man reached for his hip pocket.
Peter said, "Take him high!" and they plunged.
Peter dove for the man's knees, Buregarde went in a three-stride lope
like an accordion folding and unfolding and then arched in a long leap
with his snarling fangs aimed at the man's throat. Man and dog hit him
low and high before he could open his mouth, before he could free the
snub pencil-ray. There was a short scrabble that ended when Buregarde
lifted the man's head and whammed it down hard against the floor.
Weakly, the check girl finished her statement, "...His weapons!" and
keeled over in a dead faint.
Buregarde shook himself violently and worked his jaws, licking blood
from his chops. Peter looked in through the open wall-door opposite the
check counter; the racket had not been noticed by the roomful of
spacemen and riffraff. The babble of a hundred tongues still went on
amid the clink of glasses and the disturbing strains of Xanabian music.
Smoke from a hundred semi-noxious weeds lay in strata across the room,
and at a table in the far corner two men faced one another, their
expressions a mixed pair. One held heavily begrudged admiration as he
paid off five hundredweight of crystal-cut in the legal tender of
Xanabar to the other, whose expression was greedy self-confidence. One
of His Excellency's Peacekeepers presided over the exchange. Coldly he
extracted a fiftyweight from the pile and folded it into the signed and
completed wager-contract. For his own coffer he extracted a fiveweight
and slipped it into his boot top.
Peter Hawley and Buregarde passed on, went through the far door dragging
their late adversary ignominiously by the heels. Amid the lessened
publicity of the distant hall, Peter checked the man and shrugged. "He
may live," he said coldly, "if he doesn't bleed to death."
"You really ought to take 'em on the high side," said Buregarde,
plaintively. "All I've got is my teeth to grab with. They don't bleed so
bad from the ankle."
"They don't stay stopped that way either," said Peter harshly.
"You'd not be getting any praise from the Chief for that sort of
brutality."
"If Xanabar weren't rotten to the core, we wouldn't be plowing through
it in the first place. Now, let's get going."
"Shouldn't you call for the rest of the crew?"
"Not until I'm certain the girl's here. I'd hate to cut the city-wide
search for cold evidence."
"She's here. I scent her."
"Maybe it's past tense, Buregarde. Or maybe it's another woman."
"Could be. But one thing: It is definitely Terrestrial woman." The dog
sniffed again. "You get anything?"
"No more than before. It's close and they're the same set of impressions
Yet, any woman would be frantic with fear and concern."
"I ... _shhh_!" Buregarde's sharp ears lifted instinctively at a distant
sound not heard by the man. With a toss of his head, the dog folded one
ear back, uncovering the inner shell. Like a sonic direction finder,
Buregarde turned his head and listened.
"Man," he said finally with a low growling voice. "Peter, there'll be
hell to pay around here directly. He's stumbled over our recent
conquest."
"Let's get cutting!"
* * * * *
Peter started trying doors and peering in; the dog raced on ahead of the
man, sniffing deep at the bottom of each. It was the dog that found the
room. He called, "Here!" and Peter raced forward just as the fellow on
the stairs yelled something in his native tongue.
Peter hit the door with the heel of his foot and slammed it open by
splintering the doorframe. The dog crouched low and poised; Peter
slipped in and around feeling for a light-switch. From inside there was
a voiceless whimper of fright and from outside and below there came the
pounding of several sets of heavy feet. Peter found the switch and
flooded the room with light. The girl--whether she was Miss Vanessa
Lewis or someone else, and kidnap-wise it was still a Terrestrial
girl--lay trussed on the bed, a patch of surgical tape over her mouth.
"Sorry," said Peter in a voice that he hoped was soothing. He reached,
freed a corner of the tape and ripped it off in a single swipe. The girl
howled. Peter slapped her lightly. "Stop it!" he commanded sharply.
"Vanessa Lewis?"
"Yes, but--"
"Call out the marines, Peter," snarled the dog.
"No! Bo! Back!"
Reluctantly the dog backed into the room. He crouched low, poised to
spring, with his nose just beyond the doorframe.
"Four of 'em," he whimpered pleadingly. "I can get two--"
"Well, I can't get the other two unless I'm lucky," snapped Peter.
"Don't be so eager to die for nothing, Buregarde."
"All this calculation," grumbled the dog sourly. "I don't call it a loss
if I get two for one."
"I call it a loss if I don't get four for nothing--or the whole damned
Empire of Xanabar for nothing, for that matter. We've a job to do and it
ain't dying--until Miss Lewis is out of this glorious citadel."
The girl looked from one to the other. They did not need any
identification; they were their own bona fides. Only man--Terrestrial
Man--had intelligent dogs to work beside him. Period, question closed.
Buregarde snarled at the door warningly while Peter stripped surgical
tape from wrists and ankles.