"I know it," said Joris grimly. "So it looks as though we'll have an
extra passenger."
Trehearne had finished with the gag. He looked at Shairn. Her eyes
burned and her face was white above the cloth.
Joris threw his cloak over her. "Take her down in my private lift," he
told the guard. "The sector has already been cleared, so you won't have
any trouble there. Get her aboard and make damned sure she's locked in."
The guard nodded. He picked up the cloak-wrapped bundle and put it
over his shoulder. The buzzer of the visiphone made a sudden jarring
sound. Joris motioned the man to hurry, waited until he was gone before
answering. Trehearne pressed himself back against the wall, out of
range of the screen.
Kerrel's voice said, "Joris--we're bringing Edri down in exactly
fifteen minutes. Is everything ready?"
Joris nodded. "The sector is cleared, the guards are posted and the
ship is ready for take-off."
"Good. There's a good bit of feeling about this business and we don't
want any trouble."
"I've seen to it," Joris told him.
The screen went dark. "The swine!" said Joris. "He's only doing what
he believes is right but he's so bloody smug about it. Agent of the
Council! Bah!"
Unexpectedly he caught Trehearne's shoulders in a bearlike grip that
nearly broke them.
"I'm glad you're with us. Are you armed?"
"Yes."
"Come on, then. This is the end of my waiting. I'm going back to space,
Trehearne! I'm going to do the things I knew I'd have to do some day
after I watched my son die. Come on then--move!"
They went down in the tiny private lift and out of the building to a
guarded sector where the lights burned brightly over silent ships,
where there were no swarming mobs of non-Vardda workmen, no clatter of
machinery and whizzing of busy trams, only the deserted aprons of the
great docks and the empty spaces between them.
As they went Joris told Trehearne what he had to do. "Only the guards
at the gate, and the four who will pick up Kerrel's men when they come
through belong to me. The others, we hope, will be too far away to
interfere. But we'll have no time to linger."
"Where is the prison ship?"
"I spotted that at the far end of the sector. And they'll find its
generators shot when they try to follow us. The Orthists are strong
among the non-Vardda. The mechanics were glad to do that little job for
me!"
Joris spoke briefly to the guards about Trehearne. They nodded a
welcome. "In about ten minutes," Joris said. "Is the girl aboard?"
"All secure, sir."
"Good. Come along, Trehearne." He led the way past two of the towering
docks. By the time they reached the third they were out of sight and
hearing of the gate. In this third dock was a long rakish starship,
lightless and silent, all hatches closed except the port.
"The _Mirzim_, the ship we're taking," said Joris. "A long-distance
light trader, built for speed. Well, we'll need that. It belongs,
by the way, to a good friend of mine. He'll have to collect from
the two good cargo ships I'm leaving behind." He added, "The crew's
waiting inside now. Only a half-crew really--not many navigators and
technicians are dependable Orthists."
He stationed Trehearne in the shadows under the corner of the apron.
"We'll jump them right here. Try not to kill anyone. As soon as Edri is
free make for the _Mirzim_."
"Right." Trehearne settled back into the patch of darkness, hidden from
anyone walking past in the areaway. He held his shock-tube ready in his
hand. Joris was already gone, heading back to the gate.
Trehearne listened to the sounds of the spaceport. The sharp smell of
the sea was in the wind, and in the distance he could see the shining
towers of the city. He thought that this was probably the last time he
would ever see Llyrdis. He knew a stabbing pang of regret. And then,
coming from the direction of the gate, he heard the rhythmic tramp of
perhaps a dozen men, moving at a brisk pace toward him. He was glad
that the wait was no longer.
He did not move but his body quivered, settling itself.
There was Joris, walking first with Kerrel. There were four men without
uniforms. There was a fifth man and beside him Edri, with his right
wrist linked to the man's left. There were four more men without
uniforms, then four of Joris' guards.
The head of the little column passed the corner of the third dock. The
four guards broke rank and pulled out their shock tubes, aiming the
pallid beams at an angle to avoid hitting Edri.
Trehearne sprang out and joined them.
Three of Kerrel's men went down on that first assault. Two were
unconscious but one could still use his shocker. Joris had caught
Kerrel unawares and knocked him down with nothing more than his great
hammer of a fist. He pulled out his own weapon then and waded in.
A vicious dogfight began, swirling around with Edri as its center. Edri
grappled with his guard and they fell, both struggling, both hampered
by the fetters.
Both sides quit using the shockers. The fighting was too close for
that, a small blundering nasty melee of fists and feet, men stumbling
over each other, hitting the wrong people in their haste, going down,
getting up again, shouting for help, swearing, astonished, furious.
Trehearne, trying to get to Edri, smashed one man solidly in the face
and sent another staggering. Then he was tripped and was kicked as he
went down. He found himself sprawling on top of Edri, who grunted and
struck at him, then said, "Oh, it's you. The key is in his belt."
Trehearne chopped down with his fist. The man's head rang on the
concrete. He lay still and Trehearne found the key. Then a heavy weight
descended on him from behind, grinding his face into the cement. The
hand that held the key was pinioned in an iron grip. He thrashed about,
trying to unseat his attacker, and in the meantime Edri had grabbed his
hand as well, wrenching and clawing with a single-minded determination
to have the key.
He got it. Trehearne managed to get his knees under him and roll. He
saw Kerrel's face close to his. In a second the two men had each other
by the throat. They strained together, breast to breast, like two
lovers, kicked and tramped by the feet of other men, oblivious. Edri
got free and rose. He would have struck Kerrel but Trehearne gasped,
"No! I'll handle him!"
Kerrel smiled, an anguished baring of the teeth. His thumbs bit hard
into Trehearne's neck. Trehearne let go of Kerrel's throat. He bunched
his two fists together and struck upward. Kerrel's head snapped back.
His hands loosened. Trehearne tore them away. He threw himself on top
of Kerrel. He hit him hard in the face until Kerrel's head rolled like
the head of a dead man.
Hands grasped him and tried to drag him away. He shook them off. Kerrel
moaned and turned on his side. Trehearne kicked him with his sandalled
feet. "That's for Yann," he grunted. "That's for the hounds and for
Torin."
A voice roared at him. "Leave it, damn you! Leave it!" A very strong
arm thrust him aside. He recognized Joris. There were distant sounds of
shouting, coming closer. Kerrel's men were down or scattered. Their own
men were running for the _Mirzim_, dragging with them several who were
stunned or partly paralyzed. Edri, with a bleeding face, was capering
joyously and yelling at him to hurry.
Trehearne shook his head to clear it. He ran beside Joris, stumbling
up the metal stair to the apron. He was the last one through the
port. Joris hauled down a lever and the port closed and locked itself
automatically with a squeal of compressed air.
Instantly the lights went on. The great generators jarred to life.
Joris strode heavily down the long corridor to the bridge with
Trehearne at his heels. There was another man sitting there but Joris
took over the pilot chair.
Trehearne waited tensely but Joris did not touch the controls. He
merely sat there, inspecting his bruised fists.
"What the hell are you waiting for?" Trehearne cried. "We've only got a
few moments at most!"
Joris looked at him stolidly. "We've only got one life too. We can
throw it away by starting at the wrong moment and colliding with
incoming ships. I know the dispatch-schedules. Wait."
Trehearne waited. He could not hear inside the ship but he knew that
by now alarms must be shrilling all over the spaceport. It was mad
to wait. It was craven surrender. Better to run any risk of suicidal
collision than to wait....
And still Joris waited, an eye cocked on the chronometers, until
through the window Trehearne saw lights flashing up outside and men
running. And then he glimpsed the loom of a great ship slanting down
out of the sky, over and past them.