* * * * *
She stood there with her hands together, calmly looking at him. "I am.
But you are too, to them. Mars is millions of miles away, and you're
right across the Square from the Mayor's suite."
"Yeah, but--" Lane shook his head and turned back to the window. "All
right, look! Move them boats away and I'll let this girl out!"
"No deal, Lane. We're coming in." The police boats backed away slowly,
then shot straight up, out of the line of vision.
Lane looked down at the Square. Far below, the long, gleaming barrel of
a blaster cannon caught the dim light filtering down through Newyork's
Shell. The cannon trundled into the Square on its olive-drab, box-shaped
caterpillar mounting and took up a position equidistant from the bases
of the three towers.
Now a rumble of many voices rose from below. Lane stared down to see a
large crowd gathering in Tammany Square. Sound trucks were rolling to a
stop around the edges of the crowd. The people were all looking up.
Lane looked across the Square. The windows of the tower opposite, the
ones he could see clearly, were crowded with faces. There were white dot
faces on the balcony that Gerri Kin had pointed out as the Mayor's
suite.
The voice of a 3V newscaster rolled up from the Square, reechoing
against the tower walls.
"Lane is holding the Martian Ambassador, Gerri Kin, hostage. You can see
the Martian tricolor behind his force-globe. Police are bringing up
blaster cannon. Lane's defense is a globe of energy similar to the one
which protects Newyork from aerial attack."
Lane grinned back at Gerri Kin. "Whole town's down there." Then his grin
faded. Nice-looking, nice-talking girl like this probably cared a lot
more about dying than he did. Why the hell didn't they give him a chance
to let her out? Maybe he could do it now.
Cybrain said no. It said the second he dropped his force-screen, they'd
blast this room to hell. Poor girl from Mars, she didn't have a chance.
Gerri Kin put her hand to her forehead. "Why did you have to pick my
room? Why did they send me to this crazy city? Private soldiers. Twenty
million people living under a Shell like worms in a corpse. Earth is
sick and it's going to kill me. What's going to happen?"
Lane looked sadly at her. Only two kinds of girls ever went near a
Trooper--the crazy ones and the ones the city paid. Why did he have to
be so near getting killed when he met one he liked? Now that she was
showing a little less fear and anger, she was talking straight to him.
She was good, but she wasn't acting as if she was too good for him.
"They'll start shooting pretty quick," said Lane. "I'm sorry about you."
"I wish I could write a letter to my parents," she said.
"What?"
"Didn't you understand what I said?"
"What's a letter?"
"You don't know where Mars is. You don't know what a letter is. You
probably can't even read and write!"
* * * * *
Lane shrugged. He carried on the conversation disinterestedly,
professionally relaxed before battle. "What's these things I can't do?
They important?"
"Yes. The more I see of this city and its people, the more important I
realize they are. You know how to fight, don't you? I'll bet you're
perfect with those weapons."
"Listen. They been training me to fight since I was a little kid. Why
shouldn't I be a great little fighter?"
"Specialization," said the girl from Mars.
"What?"
"Specialization. Everyone I've met in this city is a specialist.
SocioSpecs run the government. TechnoSpecs run the machinery. Troopers
fight the wars. And ninety per cent of the people don't work at all
because they're not trained to do anything."
"The Fans," said Lane. "They got it soft. That's them down there, come
to watch the fight."
"You know why you were kept in the Armory, Lane? I heard them talking
about it, at the dinner I went to last night."
"Why?"
"Because they're afraid of the Troopers. You men did too good a job out
in Chi. You are the deadliest weapon that has ever been made. You.
Single airborne infantrymen!"
Lane said, "They told us in Trooper Academy that it's the men that win
the wars."
"Yes, but people had forgotten it until the SocioSpecs of Newyork came
up with the Troopers. Before the Troopers, governments concentrated on
the big weapons, the missiles, the bombs. And the cities, with the
Shells, were safe from bombs. They learned to be self-sufficient under
the Shells. They were so safe, so isolated, that national governments
collapsed. But you Troopers wiped out that feeling of security, when you
infiltrated Chi and conquered it."
"We scared them, huh?"
Gerri said, "You scared them so much that they were afraid to let you
have a furlough in the city when you came back. Afraid you Troopers
would realize that you could easily take over the city if you wanted to.
You scared them so much that they'll let me be killed. They'll actually
risk trouble with Mars just to kill you."
"I'm sorry about you. I mean it, I like--"
At that moment a titanic, ear-splitting explosion hurled him to the
carpet, deafened and blinded him.
He recovered and saw Gerri a few feet away, dazed, groping on hands and
knees.
Lane jumped to the window, looked quickly, sprang back. Cybrain pumped
orders to his nervous system.
"Blaster cannon," he said. "But just one. Gotcha, cybrain. I can beat
that."
He picked up the black box that generated his protective screen.
Snapping it open with thumb-pressure, he turned a small dial. Then he
waited.
Again an enormous, brain-shattering concussion.
Again Lane and Gerri were thrown to the floor. But this time there was a
second explosion and a blinding flash from below.
Lane laughed boyishly and ran to the window.
"Look!" he called to Gerri.
* * * * *
There was a huge gap in the crowd below. The pavement was blackened and
shattered to rubble. In and around the open space sprawled dozens of
tiny black figures, not moving.
"Backfire," said Lane. "I set the screen to throw their blaster beam
right back at them."
"And they knew you might--and yet they let a crowd congregate!"
Gerri reeled away from the window, sick.
Lane said, "I can do that a couple times more, but it burns out the
force-globe. Then I'm dead."
He heard the 3V newscaster's amplified voice: "--approximately fifty
killed. But Lane is through now. He has been able to outthink police
with the help of his cybrain. Now police are feeding the problem to
their giant analogue computer in the sub-basement of the Court House.
The police analogue computer will be able to outthink Lane's cybrain,
will predict Lane's moves in advance. Four more blaster cannon are
coming down Broadway--"
"Why don't they clear those people out of the Square?" Gerri cried.
"What? Oh, the Fans--nobody clears them out." He paused. "I got one more
chance to try." He raised a mailed glove to his mouth and pressed a
small stud in the wrist. He said, "Trooper HQ, this is Lane."
A voice spoke in his helmet. "Lane, this is Trooper HQ. We figured you'd
call."
"Get me Colonel Klett."
Thirty seconds passed. Lane could hear the clank of caterpillar treads
as the mobile blaster cannon rolled into Tammany Square.
The voice of the commanding officer of the Troopers rasped into Lane's
ear: "Meat-head! You broke out against my orders! _Now_ look at you!"
"I knew you didn't mean them orders, sir."
"If you get out of there alive, I'll hang you for disobeying them!"
"Yes, sir. Sir, there's a girl here--somebody important--from Mars. You
know, the planet. Sir, she told me we could take over the city if we got
loose. That right, sir?"
There was a pause. "Your girl from Mars is right, Lane. But it's too
late now. If we had moved first, captured the city government, we might
have done it. But they're ready for us. They'd chop us down with blaster
cannon."
"Sir, I'm asking for help. I know you're on my side."
"I am, Lane." The voice of Colonel Klett was lower. "I'd never admit it
if you had a chance of getting out of there alive. You've had it, son.
I'd only lose more men trying to rescue you. When they feed the data
into that analogue computer, you're finished."
"Yes, sir."
"I'm sorry, Lane."
"Yes, sir. Over and out."
Lane pressed the stud on his gauntlet again. He turned to Gerri.
"You're okay. I wish I could let you out. Old cybrain says I can't. Says
if I drop the force-globe for a second, they'll fire into the room, and
then we'll both be dead."
* * * * *
Gerri stood with folded arms and looked at him. "Do what you have to do.
As far as I can see, you're the only person in this city that has even a
little bit of right on his side."
Lane laughed. "Any of them purple-haired broads I know would be crazy
scared. You're different."
"When my grandparents landed on Mars, they found out that selfishness
was a luxury. Martians can't afford it."
Lane frowned with the effort of thinking. "You said I had a little right
on my side. That's a good feeling. Nobody ever told me to feel that way
about myself before. It'll be better to die knowing that."
"I know," she said.
The amplified voice from below said, "The police analogue computer is
now hooked directly to the controls of the blaster cannon battery. It
will outguess Lane's cybrain and check his moves ahead of time."
Lane looked at Gerri. "How about giving me a kiss before they get us? Be
nice if I kissed a girl like you just once in my life."