Part 13 (2/2)

He walked backward down the stairs, stepping in his own footprints as best he could. When the fourth-floor door dropped, he threw his helmet through, then his pressure suit. Then he jumped for it.

He'd left a pair of sloppy footprints, but no other tracks. And now he was on cloud-rug. He stooped to brush away two dusty footprints, picked up his suit and helmet and staggered on.

He couldn't seem to get enough air.

CHAPTER FIVE:

STEALING YOUTH.

I.

He staggered through clean, geometric, empty, sound-deadening corridors. Doors did not drop for him. Twice he tried holding his plastic disk against what he thought were entrance plates. It was all he could think of, and it didn't work. Whatever this place was, he-or the dead man Corbell had robbed-was not authorized to pa.s.s these doors.

The pressure suit became too heavy for him. He dropped it.

He talked to the helmet, but it didn't answer. Where the h.e.l.l was Peerssa?

Corbell had freed Peerssa from all orders past and future. Corbell had gone unprotected into an unknown environment; had later dropped out of communication. Jaybee CORBELL Mark II: missing, presumed dead. By now Peerssa could be rounding the sun on his way to some nearby star. Searching for the State.

Peerssa's interstellar laser beam could have burned the old woman down as she crossed a street. But Corbell's computer had abandoned him... and Corbell hurled the helmet viciously into the cloud-rug, but not as hard as he wanted, because his hands were still bound. The blind faceplate stared after him as he went on.

His legs were starting to cramp.

The clean air was turning musty with the old smell of something truly dead when Corbell came at last to an open door. He thought the mechanism had failed... and then he saw why. A small hole had been burned through the gold plate.

Beyond the doorway was cruder damage and a richer smell.

It had been a surgery, he guessed. At least, that looked like an operating table with machinery suspended above it, and the machinery included scalpels on jointed arms.

There were crumbled brown skeletons. One, naked, lay in a pool of dust on the table. Two others sprawled against a wall. Their stained and damaged uniforms were in better shape than the bones within. The cloth bore charred slashes that continued into the bones, as if men had been hacked by a white-hot sword. These men had been man-sized, Corbell's size.

The wall behind the desk had a hole in it big enough to drive a car through. Bombs?

Corbell heaved himself up on the table with the skeleton. He rubbed the bandages against a scalpel edge... and behold! His wrists were free.

Now he moved to the great gap in the wall. He was getting his breath back, but his heartbeat was fast and fluttery. What he wanted most was a chance to lie down and rest... until he looked down into the vault.

It was two stories high and windowless. To the left, a thick circle of metal almost the height of the wall, with a stylized s.h.i.+p's wheel set in it. It looked for all the world like a bank-vault door. There were guard posts: gla.s.s cubicles set just below the ceiling, and in the cubicles were skeletons armed with things like spotlights with rifle b.u.t.ts.

A bank vault seemed out of place in a hospital.

There were shelves on all three walls, floor to ceiling. The few items still on the shelves were not gold bars. They were bottles. The floor, ten feet below Corbell, was covered with broken gla.s.s.

There was a hall-melted metal thing, an animated dishwasher very like the machine that had attacked Corbell and Peerssa as burglars. Other machinery looked intact. There was an instrument console that might have been (given the hospital motif motif) diagnostic equipment. There was a matched pair of transparent ”phone booths,” gla.s.s cylinders with rounded tops. Corbell saw these and l.u.s.ted.

The invaders had brought a ladder. He climbed down carefully, treating himself as fragile. Four skeletons at the bottom showed that the invaders had not had things all their own way. He stepped carefully among the bones. As a hospital the place made a good crypt- better than most, in fact. Cool. Clean. No insects, no scavengers, no fungus.

But it wasn't death Corbell was running from. It was a silver cane and a change more humiliating than death.

The lights were still on in the vault. Indicator lights glowed on the console. With luck the booths would work, too. He stepped into one and looked for a dial.

No dial, just a b.u.t.ton set in a slender post. No choice about where he was going. Corbell wondered if the Norn would be waiting at the other end. He made himself push the b.u.t.ton anyway.

Nothing happened.

He cursed luridly, pushed out of the booth and tried the other. The second booth didn't even have a door, and there was fine dust floating in it. What the h.e.l.l?

What was was this place? The drugs on the shelves must have been incredibly valuable. Four human guards and a metal killer, a single door that looked like it would stand off an atomic attack, an instant-else-where booth with only one terminal and another booth you couldn't get out of... an invading army willing to go up against all that, with bombs... and suddenly he knew where he must be. this place? The drugs on the shelves must have been incredibly valuable. Four human guards and a metal killer, a single door that looked like it would stand off an atomic attack, an instant-else-where booth with only one terminal and another booth you couldn't get out of... an invading army willing to go up against all that, with bombs... and suddenly he knew where he must be.

It was a double jolt.

Those shelves must have held dictator immortality. And they were bare.

Everything fitted. Of course you'd store geriatric drugs in a hospital. The booths must lead directly to dictator strongholds- and even they they could only appear in the closed booth. If the man in the booth wore the right face, someone outside could dial him into the booth that had a door. If not, he was a sitting duck for the laser weapons. could only appear in the closed booth. If the man in the booth wore the right face, someone outside could dial him into the booth that had a door. If not, he was a sitting duck for the laser weapons.

And the vault door might well stand an atomic attack. But thieves had come through a wall -and maybe they'd used atomics too. Did Mirelly-Lyra know about this place? She must. She'd have kept looking until she found it.

And so would Corbell, and she knew it: The Norn herself had told him about dictator immortality. He had to get out of here.

Exhaustion had become an agony. He would climb the ladder if he must, if he could, but he tried the vault door first. And it was open! All of his strength and weight were just enough to swing it wide. The invaders must have left by the door they could not enter.

So did he, very gratefully. The line of ”phone booths” was on this floor. He had walked a zigzag path from there; he might have trouble finding his way back- He saw the booths as he rounded a corner. And he saw Mirelly-Lyra Zeelas.h.i.+sthar, holding her cane like a gun and squinting at something in her other hand. Just before he ducked back he saw her look up at the ceiling with her teeth bared.

It wasn't him she was tracing. It was his pressure-suit helmet. Peerssa, good-bye. Peerssa, good-bye. Corbell counted to thirty, then stuck his nose around the corner. She wasn't there. He tiptoed through the cloud-rug to the next intersection and peered around it. She wasn't there either, and he crossed the intersection at a leap and was in the nearest booth with the disk in his hand. Corbell counted to thirty, then stuck his nose around the corner. She wasn't there. He tiptoed through the cloud-rug to the next intersection and peered around it. She wasn't there either, and he crossed the intersection at a leap and was in the nearest booth with the disk in his hand.

Mirelly-Lyra would not have liked the way he was smiling.

Two commas crossed; an S reversed; an hourgla.s.s on its side and pushed inward from the ends; a crooked pi. pi. The corridors vanished. In blackness he thumbed the door open and stepped out into blackness. A gust of warm, damp wind whipped at him, and at the same time he saw dim light: a slender, hot-pink crescent with the horns down, at eye level. The corridors vanished. In blackness he thumbed the door open and stepped out into blackness. A gust of warm, damp wind whipped at him, and at the same time he saw dim light: a slender, hot-pink crescent with the horns down, at eye level.

He stood still while his eyes adjusted. A world took form around him.

He was on a flat roof, looking into a solar eclipse. They must be fairly common these days, with both Sol and Jupiter occluding so much of the sky. But the effect was beautiful, a hot-pink ring lighting sea and city with red dusk. He wished he could stay.

Mirelly-Lyra must be finding his pressure-suit helmet about now.

There were stairs. He would have been happier knowing how tall the building was, but he didn't. He had to walk all the way to the bottom-and he was rea.s.sured to recognize the building that housed Mirelly-Lyra's office. He paused for a precious moment of rest, then climbed back up three flights. Next question: Had the Nom noticed that the office door wasn't closed?

The sixth door was open a crack, blocked by a fallen b.u.t.ton. The door resisted his weight, then gave slowly, let him in.

They must have turned these offices out like popcorn boxes, he thought. Did it connect to the exploded bedroom? Did it connect to the exploded bedroom? He had bet his life on it. He stepped into the ”phone booth” and looked for the intercom panel. He had bet his life on it. He stepped into the ”phone booth” and looked for the intercom panel.

Five b.u.t.tons? He pushed the top one. b.u.t.tons? He pushed the top one.

Through the gla.s.s door he saw salt dunes running downslope to a distant line of brilliant blue. He was in one of the seash.o.r.e booths. He pushed the second b.u.t.ton.

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