Part 74 (1/2)
At intervals they pa.s.sed access ports on either side, above, below. Each had a number stenciled on it. Each .
225.
looked much the same as the others. Had it not been for Aygar's mapper, Sa.s.sinak would have had no idea which way to go.
She had been hearing the faint whine for some moments before it registered, and then she jumped forward and tapped Aygar's shoulder. ”Listen.”
He shrugged. ”This whole planet makes noise,” he said. ”No one can hear anything in a city. Nothing that means anything, that is.”
”How far to where we go up?” asked Sa.s.sinak. The whine was marginally louder.
”Haifa kilometer, perhaps, if I'm reading this right.”
”Too far.” She looked around and saw an access hatch less than twenty meters ahead, on their side of the monorail, below the cable housing. ”Well take that one.”
”But why?”
The whine had sharpened and a soft brush of air touched his face. He whirled at once and raced for the batch. Sa.s.sinak caught up with him, helped wrestle it open. At once, an alarm rang out, and a flas.h.i.+ng orange light, Sa.s.sinak bit back a curse. If she ever got off this planet, she would never, under any circ.u.mstances, go downside again! Aygar was dropping his legs through the hatch, but Sa.s.sinak spotted another, only five meters farther on.
”Ill open that one, too. Then they won't know which.”
She could not hear the whine of the approaching monorail car over the clamoring alarm, but the air pressure s.h.i.+fts were clear enough. She ran as she had not had to run for years, scrabbled at the hatch cover, threw it back, and winced as another alarm siren and light came on. Then back to the first, and in. Aygar had wisely retreated down the ladder, giving her room. A quick yank and the hatch closed over them. They were in darkness again. She could still hear the siren whooping. From this one? From the other? Both?
All the way down that ladder, much longer than any they'd taken before, she scolded herself. She didn't even know the monorail car was manned. It might have no windows, no sensors. They might have been able to 226.
stand quietly, watch it go by, and then walk out following Aygar's mapper. Then again maybe not. Second-guessing didn't help deal with consequences. She took a long, calming breath, and reminded herself not to tighten up. Although one thing after another had gone wrong, they were alive, unwounded, and uncaught That had to be worth something. Her foot touched Aygar's head. He had reached the bottom of the ladder.
”I can't find a hatch,” he said. His voice rang softly in the echoing dark chamber. ”I'll try light.”
Sa.s.sinak closed her eyes, and opened them when she saw pink against her lids. They were at the bottom of a slightly curving, near-vertical shaft, and nothing marked the sides at the bottom. Not so much as a roughly welded seam. Aygar's breath was loud and ragged.
”We . . . have to find a way out. There has to be a way outl”
”We will.”
She felt almost comfortable in shafts and tunnels, but Aygar had had a wilderness to run in until he boarded the Zaid-Dayan. He'd done remarkably well for someone with no s.h.i.+p training, but this dead end in a narrow shaft was too much. She could smell his sudden nervous sweat; his hand on her leg trembled.
”It's all right,” she said, the voice she might have used on a nervous youngster on his first cruise. ”We pa.s.sed it, that's all. Follow me up but quietly.”
It was not that far up, a circular hatch in the shaft across from the ladder, easily reached. Sa.s.sinak just had her hand firmly on the locking ring, ready to turn it, when it was yanked away from her, and she found herself pinned in a beam of brilliant light.
”Well.” The voice was gruff, and only slightly surprised. ”And what have we here? Not the Pollys, this time,”
Squinting against the brilliance, Sa.s.sinak could just see a dark form outlined by more light beyond, and the gleam of light down a narrow tube, a weapon, no doubt.
”How many?” demanded the voice.
Sa.s.sinak wondered if Aygar could hide below, but realized he couldn't, not in the grip of claustrophobia.
227.
”Two,” she said crisply.
”Y'all come on outa there, then,” said the voice.
The light withdrew just enough to give them room. Sa.s.sinak slid through feet-first, and found herself coming out of a waist-high hatch in a horizontal tunnel. Aygar followed her, his tanned face pale around mouth and eyes, and dripping with sweat. Carefully, as if she were doing this on her own s.h.i.+p, Sa.s.sinak closed the hatch and pushed the locking mechanism.
Facing them were five rough-looking figures in much-patched jumpsuits. Two held obvious weapons that looked like infantry a.s.sault rifles: one had a long knife spliced to a section of metal conduit and one held the light that still blinded them. The last lounged against the tunnel wall, eyeing them with something between greed and disgust.
”Y'all rang the doorbell, up there?” that one asked. The same husky voice, from a stocky frame that might be man or woman-impossible to tell, with layers of ragged clothes concealing its real shape.
”Didn't mean to,” said Sa.s.sinak. ”Got a little lost.”
”More'n a little. Douse the light, Jemi.”
The spotlight blinked off, and Sa.s.sinak closed her eyes a moment to let them adjust. When she opened them again, the woman who had held the spotlight was stuffing it in a backpack. The two rifles had not moved. Neither had Sa.s.sinak. Aygar made an indeterminate sound behind her, not quite a growl. She suspected that he liked the look of the homemade spear. The person who had spoken pushed off the wall and stood watching them.
”Can you give me one good reason why we shouldn't slit and strip you right now?”
Sa.s.sinak grinned; that had been bravado, not decision.
”It'd make a big mess next to the shaft we came out of,” she said. ”If someone does follow down here ...”
”They will,” growled one of the rifle-bearers. The muzzle s.h.i.+fted a hair to one side. ”Should be goin', Cor . . .”
”Wait. You're not the usual trash we get down here, and there's plenty of trouble up top. Who are you?”
228.
”Who are the Pollys?” Sa.s.sinak countered.
”You got the Insystem Federation Security Police after you, and you don't know who they are?”
A twin of the jolt she'd felt hearing Parchandri's name went down her spine. Insystem Security's active arm was supposed to confine itself to ensuring the safety of governmental functions. She'd a.s.sumed their pursuers were planet pirate hired guns, or (at worst) a section of city police.
”I didn't know that's who we had after us. Orange uniforms?”
”Riot squads. Special action teams. Sheee! All right. You tell us who you are or you're dead right here, mess and all.”
The rifles were steady again, and Sa.s.sinak thought the one with the spear probably knew how to use it.
”Commander Sa.s.sinak,” she said. ”Fleet, captain of the heavy cruiser Zaid-Dayan, docked in orbit...”
”And I'm Luisa Paraden's hairdresser! You'll do better than that or . . .”
”She really is,” Aygar broke in. The other's eyes narrowed as she heard his unfamiliar accent. ”She brought me . . .”