* * * * *
Apollo and his two friends traded glances. The one on the right was
bull-necked and red-headed; the one on the left had a neck and nose
like a crane. It was the one on the left who suddenly smiled. Not a
pleasant smile. He stepped up to Apollo and whispered something in his
ear. Then Apollo smiled and turned to me again.
"You're _sure_ you haven't seen anyone."
He knew something. I didn't know what, but it was too late to back out
now. I said, "Of course I'm sure."
Apollo kept his eyes on me, hard, flat, stony, and held out his hand
to the cranelike Deacon. "Your light," he said. The other handed it to
him. Apollo flashed it on the ground. It came to rest upon unmistakable
footprints in the soft moss. They led to the bank.
I could be certain of arrest, and one of their little interviews now. I
really had nothing to lose. Nothing that wasn't already lost--
"Run!" I shouted at the top of my lungs. "They're coming!"
There was a rustling under the bank.
I leaped at Apollo. I leaped hard, with my feet solid, pushing me
forward. My shoulder hit him in the midriff. He went down. I scrambled
over him and jammed my thumb into his shoulder. He screamed.
There was a buzzing sound and the smell of burned flesh, and a tenth of
a second later I felt pain. One of the others had jammed his electric
truncheon into the small of my back. It bored in, it burned, and I
writhed and yelled. I couldn't help it. I rolled over.
Someone was kicking at me. I grabbed his leg and pulled him down and
when he struck the ground I twisted. Another shape blurred toward
me--Apollo, recovered and on his feet again. Then buzzing, burned
flesh, and the pain this time in the back of my neck. My head swirled.
I thrashed, trying to get away. Get away where? That made not much
difference. Away, that was all.
The buzzing continued. It was through my flesh now and touching the
spine. It would destroy the nerves in a moment. I would be dead--or
even worse, a limp cripple, a rag doll.
The smell of roasted flesh and hair was a thick, choking, sickening
fog of decay. I couldn't breathe. There was blackness, swirling and
concentric, closing in.