"One blow for freedom!" said Mury with caught breath. His voice fell
upon air scarcely stilled since the sodden thump of the blow that had
killed the guard.
The body lay between them, face down on the graveled way in the inky
moon-shadow. On one side Pi Mesa stretched away two hundred yards to
drop sharply into the night; on the other was the unlighted mass of the
long, continuous, low buildings that housed now unused fuel pumps and
servicing equipment. Looking down at the dead huddle at his feet, a
little stunned by the reality of this, Ryd knew that he was in it now.
He was caught in the machinery.
Mury hefted the length of steel in his hand once more, as if testing
the weight that had crushed a man's skull so easily. Then, with a short
wrist-flip, he sent it flying into the dried weeds which had over-grown
the aero field on the mesa's rim during the summer months after State
order had grounded all fliers in America.
"All right, Ryd," he said coolly. "Trade clothes with this fellow. I've
brought you this far--you're taking me the rest of the way."
The rest of the way.
Ryd was still panting, and his side was paining from the strenuous
exertion of the long climb up the side of the mountain, far from the
guarded highway. His fingers, numbed by the cold of the high, thin air,
shook as he knelt and fumbled with the zippers of the dead guard's
uniform. The belted gun, however, was heavy and oddly comforting as
he clumsily buckled it about his hips. He knew enough of weapons
to recognize this as, not the usual paralyzer, but a flame pistol,
powerful and deadly. He let his hand linger on its butt; then strong
fingers tightened on his bony wrist, and he looked up with a start into
the sardonic black eyes of the Panclast.
"No use now for firearms," said Mury. "All the guns we could carry
wouldn't help us if we were caught out there. That gun is just a
stage property for the little play we're going to give in about three
minutes--when you'll act a guardsman escorting me, a Poligerent of
Dynamopolis, aboard the towship _Shahrazad_."
For a moment Ryd felt relief--he had hazily imagined that Mury's hatred
of Mars and all things Martian might have led him to try to sabotage
the Martian warship which lay somewhere on the runways beyond the long,
low buildings, and which would be closely guarded. But the towship
would also be guarded ... he shivered in the cold, dry night air.
Mury had melted into the shadow a few yards away. There was a light
scraping, then a green flame sputtered, briefly lighting up his hands
and face, and narrowing at once to a thin, singing needle of light.
He had turned a pocket electron torch against the lock-mechanism of a
small, disused metal door.
Ryd watched in painful suspense. There was no sound in his ears save
for the hard, dry shrilling of the ray as it bit into the steel. It
seemed to be crying: _run, run_--but he remembered the power that knew
how to punish better than the law, and stood still, shivering.
The lock gave way and the door slipped aside. A light went on inside,
and Ryd's heart stopped, backfired, and started again, raggedly. The
same automatic mechanism that had turned the lights on had started the
air-fresher, which picked up speed with a soft whine, sweeping out the
long-stale atmosphere. Mury motioned to Ryd to follow him in.
* * * * *
It was still musty in the narrow passage, between the closely-pressing
walls, beneath the great tubes and cable sheathings that fluted the
ceiling overhead. A stairway spiraled up on the right to the control
cupola somewhere overhead; even in the airtight gallery a thin film
of dust lay on every step. Up there were the meters and switches of
the disused terminal facilities of the spaceport; beyond the metal
door marked CAUTION, just beyond the stairwell, lay the long runway
down which the ships of space had glided to be serviced, refueled, and
launched into the sky once more by now dormant machines.
"Wait," said Mury succinctly; he vanished up the spiral stair, his
long legs taking two steps at a time. After an aching minute's silence,
he was back. All was clear as seen from the turret-windows overhead.
They emerged in shadow, hugging the wall. Almost a quarter of a mile to
the right the megalith of the Communications Tower, crowned with many
lights where the signal-men sat godlike in its summit. Its floodlights
shed a vast oval of light out over the mesa, where the mile-long
runways--no longer polished mirror-like as in the days of Dynamopolis'
glory--stretched away into the darkness of the table land. A handful
of odd ships--mere remnant of the hundreds that Pi Mesa port had
berthed--huddled under the solenoid wickets, as if driven together by
the chill of the thin, knife-like wind that blew across the mesa.
As the two paced slowly across the runways, Ryd had a sense of
protective isolation in the vast impersonality of the spaceport.
Surely, in this Titanic desolation of metal slabs and flat-roofed
buildings, dominated by the one great tower, total insignificance must
mean safety for them.
And indeed no guard challenged them. There were armed men watching
for all intruders out on the desert beyond the runways, but once
inside, Ryd's borrowed blue seemed to serve as passport enough.
Nonetheless, the passport's knees were shaking when they stood at last,
inconspicuous still, at the shadowed base of the Communications Tower.
Not far off, a half-dozen dignitaries, huddled close together in the
midst of these Cyclopean man-made things that dwarfed their policies,
their principles and ambitions, stood talking rather nervously with two
officers, aristocratically gaudy in the scarlet of the Martian Fleet.
Blue-clad guardsmen of Earth watched from a distance--watched boredly
enough.
And out on the steel-stripped tarmac, under the solenoid of Number
Two Runway, lay a towship, backed like a stegosaur with its massive
magnets--the _Shahrazad_, panting like a dragon amid rolling clouds of
steam. She was plainly ready to go into space. The bottom dropped out
of Ryd's stomach before he realized that a warning at least must be
sounded before the ship could lift. But that might come any moment now.
"Relax," said Mury in a low voice. "Nothing's gone wrong. We'll be
aboard the _Shahrazad_ when she lifts." For a moment his black eyes
shifted, hardening, toward Runway Four. The Martian warship lay there
beyond the solenoid, a spiteful hundred-foot swordfish of steel, with
blind gunvalves, row on row, along its sleek sides and turret-blisters.
It had not yet been tugged onto the turntable; it could not be leaving
again very soon, though Earth weight was undoubtedly incommoding
its crew. About it a few figures stood that were stiffly erect and
immobile, as tall as tall men. From head to toe they were scarlet.
"Robots!" gasped Ryd, clutching his companion's arm convulsively.
"Martian soldier robots!"
"They're unarmed, harmless. They aren't your police with built-in
weapons. Only the humans are dangerous. But we've got to move. For
God's sake, take it easy."