The only things the chameleon suit could not camouflage were the slits for eyes, nose, and mouth. Three more sets of eerily disembodied organs were advancing along the other wall in the direction of the two beds. It would not be necessary to ask the wearers their intentions. One did not enter a private room in the middle of the night in a chameleon suit, breaking a lock in the process, to hand someone winnings from a lottery.
In such a situation a number of options were available. You could sit up and demand to know what the intruders wanted. You could pull a gun and start shooting, leaving questions for the police. Or you could do as Flinx did: lie quietly, imitating normal sleep breathing, watching out of half-closed eyes to see what the intruders planned to do next.
Three of them paused close together. They did not converse but merely exchanged looks, having obviously planned their moves well in advance. He dared not raise up or move his head for a better view.
The leader took something from a pocket attached to his right leg. It gleamed dully in the moonlight, a small canister with a flexible cuplike scoop over one end. Gas, Flinx thought automatically. Probably odorless, colorless, and fast-acting. Certainly not lethal. If the intruders had intended to kill the room’s occupants, they could easily have done so from the door.
The figure bent low and moved to the foot of Clarity’s bed, extending the canister before it. Abruptly it halted as something appeared between it and the sleeping woman. Something small, superfast, and hissing.
The intruders had rehearsed certain possibilities, but small superfast hissing creatures had evidently not been figured into their various scenarios. The sudden appearance of a small flying snake half a meter from one’s face would be enough to unsettle the most professional assassin.
The man let out a startled oath and stumbled backward. It was enough to stir Clarity. Rolling onto her back, she drew a hand across her forehead and moaned softly. Flinx saw her eyelids flutter.
One of the canister carrier’s companions spoke quickly and intently. “Stun the animal and then her. Now!”
The figure holding the canister raised it and moved a thumb over the recessed stud, which he never had time to press. From the tubular ridge tucked beneath its palate, the minidrag ejected less than half a cc of venom under high pressure. The poison hit the intruder in the eyes.
It was the end of pretense, of stealth, of careful movements in the dark. The man flung the canister across the room in a single convulsive movement as both hands went to his face. Screaming in pain as the highly caustic toxin ate at his eyes, he began ripping at his suit, tearing it from his head. Dissolving flesh bubbled audibly in the no longer quiet room.
Flinx dropped out of bed. Not on the far side, which was where anyone would expect him to go, but into the narrow cleft between his bed and Clarity’s. As he did so, a previously unobserved intruder rose from the other side of his bed and fired a needle beam, which penetrated pillow, mattress, and probably the floor beneath the bed where Flinx had been sleeping moments earlier. The beam was bright blue in the darkness, and it crackled nastily.
Realizing he had seared nothing but linen, the gunman started to rise for another shot at the bed’s unexpectedly absent occupant, only to find Pip hovering shockingly within wingbeat of his face. His eyes widened, visible even in the, bad light, and he jerked his head to one side.
To give him credit, he was fast. The venom struck him at the hairline instead of in the eyes.
The man Scrap had struck lay motionless on the floor, already dead. Minidrag neurotoxin killed in less than a minute once it entered the bloodstream, freezing the human nervous system as easily as one would stop an appliance by touching a button. The intruder Pip had hit had escaped this instant death. Instead, he had to deal with the poison that was entering his head via the auditory canal. He was staggering about and screaming as he fired wildly with the needler.
Pip and Scrap darted effortlessly about the room, avoiding clumsy shots and creating enormous chaos. There were more than three intruders, Flinx saw. More than five. That was when he noticed Clarity starting to sit up. Her mouth opened, and she inhaled preparatory to screaming.
Clamping his right hand over her mouth, he used his left to drag her out of the bed and down to the floor. She fell on top of him, which under different circumstances would have been delightful but at that moment did not intrigue him in the slightest.
“Quiet,” he whispered intensely as the battle raged around them. “Just shut up and be quiet. You’re in the safest place in the room right now.”
She stared dazedly into his eyes, then nodded slowly. He removed his hand from her face.
All around them was the noise of pounding feet, screams, the metallic hiss of needlers and the hum of hand beamers as the small army of kidnappers fired madly at the swooping, spitting minidrags. More often than not they ended up hitting one another.
It seemed to strike them simultaneously that they could do no good here, the way an invading army suddenly realizes it has been outflanked by the enemy it intended to crush. A silken rip sounded as one man plunged headfirst through the light mask and out into the hall. Brighter light from the hallway fixtures flooded into the room. He was followed by his companions. There were too many for Flinx to count in the confusion. They must have been infiltrating the room for thirty minutes or more before Pip woke him.
Some continued to howl as they tried to cope with the effects of minidrag toxin while they retreated. Other shouts were beginning to be heard, confused and angry voices. Doors opened onto other rooms, and tenants peered out to see what had disturbed their sleep. As they caught sight of the chameleon suits and the weapons, they retreated in haste.
“Pip?” Flinx straightened cautiously. “Pip, get back in here! That’s enough.”
It was several minutes before the big flying snake returned to the room, having pursued the last of the intruders to the bottom of the first flight of stairs. If Flinx had not called her back, she would have emptied her store of poison and might well have killed every last one of their assailants. Flinx did not want that. He planned flight, not mass murder. And in better light there was always the chance one of the attackers might get off an accurate shot.
Scrap hovered behind her, straying aloft while his mother landed at the foot of Flinx’s bed. She did not fold her wings and relax, Flinx noted, a suggestion of more trouble to come.
Only then did he notice how tightly Clarity was clinging to him. “It’s them,” she mumbled, the fear sharp-edged in her voice.
“Of course it was them. Unless there’s someone else who wants you badly enough to kill.” He looked toward the still open door. “There were a lot of them. More than I would’ve expected.”
She turned her face toward him. She was only centimeters away. “I told you how badly they want me.” He could feel her trembling against him. No false bravado now. She was scared out of her wits.
“It’s okay.” He wanted to be clever and fearless and nonchalant but only ended up being himself. “They’re gone.”
“The snakes,” she murmured. “The minidrags.” She glanced at Pip and her still hovering offspring. Scrap kept pivoting in midair, spoiling for more fight, searching for fresh enemies.
She stood, and he rose with her. Half a dozen bodies littered the floor. Several lay facedown. Others did not. The latter were not nice to look upon. Flying snake venom and nitric acid had similar effects on human flesh. No wonder people who were familiar with the minidrag’s abilities hurried to cross the street when they saw Flinx coming.
“Pip woke me,” he told her. “She sensed the threat. There was no need for me to move first. If I had, someone would’ve shot me. I always try to avoid that sort of thing because minidrags don’t have half-reactions. You can’t tell Pip just to wound somebody. There’s no such thing as a limited flying snake strike.”
They stepped over the body of a very large man who had fallen at the base of both beds. Clarity’s eyes rose from the body to the doorway.
> “I wonder if they’ll come back?”
“Not immediately. Would you?”
She shook her head sharply. Scrap darted toward her, and she moved to duck. Flinx hastened to reassure her.
“Relax. I think you’ve made a friend, though there’s no way of telling if he acted to protect me, his mother, or you. Remember that he can tell what you’re feeling, so he knows you mean me no harm. As long as that’s true, there’s no reason for you to be afraid of him.”
“You told me,” she said, straightening. “You told me, but I still couldn’t imagine how lethal they are.”
“Many people know that they’re deadly. What they don’t realize is how fast and agile they are or how rapidly their toxin acts on the human body. Short of military-class armor or an atmosphere suit, there’s no protection against them.”
He could feel as well as see the tension in her when Scrap decided to settle anew on her shoulder. Though the young minidrag relaxed, he kept his wings unfurled and ready for instant flight.
“They must still be out there or Pip would be falling asleep after exerting herself like that. Must be trying to formulate some new strategy.”
Clarity turned nervously to the window. “Surely they won’t try to rush the room.”
“Not now they won’t. Pip and Scrap aside, too many guests saw them fleeing. But if they want you as badly as they seem to, they might not act rationally.
“When they first broke in, the intention was to gas you. Probably me as well, as a safety measure. If they really want you and they have access to a decent volume of the stuff, there’s nothing to keep them from gassing the whole hotel, particularly if it’s strictly morphic in nature.”
“The police?”
He grinned slightly. “Mimmisompo’s a small, open frontier town. If the hotel manager lives in, he might, just might, try contacting the cops. The hotel automatics will talk to police automatics. In either event, the police will take their time getting here. If the shooting was reported, they’ll take a lot more time in the hopes that all the shooters will be dead by the time they arrive.”
He was already at the dresser, throwing his few belongings into the simple carryall pack. “That means we have to move fast, because if your friends intend trying for you again, they’ll want to do so before any police happen to wake up and take an interest in the night’s goings-on.”
She took a hesitant step toward the door. “How can we leave if they’re still out there?”
“We have to leave because we can’t stay here. They came in when the door was locked. They won’t stop because a few people happened to see them leaving.” He took her by the hand. “They might be on their way back up already. We don’t want to hang around and find out.”
She let him pull her along. “Where are you going?” He did not reply.
Pip rose from Flinx’s shoulder to scan both ends of the hall, whizzing in seconds from one end to the other and back again to her master. Night-lights glowed from their recesses, giving everything an eery olive-hued cast.
Only one door stood ajar, framing a large older man with a protruding paunch. His whole head had been shaved down to the ears. Hair trailed a dozen centimeters over them, surrounding his head. The effect in the dim light was as if someone had yanked a fringed cap down below his eyes.
“Hey, what’s happening? What’s going on?” He leaned out into the hall as they approached. “Party’s too loud for me. I’m gonna look for another hotel.”
“Us, too,” Flinx told him, his eyes working the corridor.
Pip spread her wings and zoomed ahead. The big man, who looked like he did not fear anything in this or any other world, caught sight of the oncoming minidrag and let out a shocked oath. He ducked back into his room, and Flinx heard the emergency latch click shut electronically.
“Everyone here knows what a minidrag can do.” Flinx started down the fire stairs. “As long as Pip stays in front of us, no one else will.”
She was going to need a huge meal, he knew. Hovering and flying so much burned a tremendous amount of energy. It seemed impossible they could maintain flight for so long, but as little was known about the flying snakes’ internal makeup as was known about the rest of their nature.
They descended carefully, Flinx grateful that the hotel was only three stories high. No one challenged them in the stairwell, where the night-lights were even dimmer than those lining the hallways.
There were two doors at the bottom, one to either side of the lower landing. One probably led back into the hotel, to the kitchen or warehousing area. The other led . . .
Into a service alley that ran between commercial structures, which they entered after Flinx had disarmed the fire alarm on the door. A narrow, charged rail ran down the center of the alley, providing power and lift for robotic delivery vehicles. Flinx cautioned Clarity to avoid the rail as they hurried down the damp corridor. It would not kill, but it could badly shock a full-grown man.
“Where are we going? To get a vehicle, right? We’re going to get transportation and head for Alaspinport. Will there be a rental agency open this late?”
“In a town like Mimmisompo you can get anything you want at any hour, if you have enough money. But we aren’t going to rent. Rentals can be noted, and traced.”
He anxiously scanned the route ahead. Not for the first time in his life he wondered if he should be carrying a weapon. The only problem with a gun was that it was a provocation as much as a defense. Besides, Pip would deal much more effectively with any serious threat. Her reactions were a hundred times faster than his. As a child he had found himself in situations where possession of a weapon would have been more of a hindrance than a help, so he had learned to get along without them. That did not keep him from occasionally wishing for the comforting weight of one at his belt or in a shoulder holster.
Scrap rode high on Clarity’s shoulder, a good indication that the danger, while not ended, was not immediate. He could not count on her pursuers delaying for very long, he knew. They might be in the bedroom already, might have discovered their quarry missing. The next thing they would do would be to thoroughly search the hotel and its immediate environs, checking other rooms to see if Flinx and Clarity had sought refuge with another guest. Certainly the front entrance would be covered from the start.
It would take them a while to figure out that the alarm on the back stairs had been disconnected long enough to let someone out into the service alley. Despite his caution, he knew they were leaving all kinds of trails behind them. Body scent heightened by fear, pheromones, heat signatures—all could be isolated and followed if one had the right kind of equipment. It could not be helped. Whether their pursuers were equipped with such sophisticated tracking devices depended on whether they had anticipated possible failure. It did not seem likely, but he could not count on convenient oversights to shield them.
“This way.” He all but wrenched her arm loose pulling her around a sharp corner. Now that Alaspin’s second moon had joined its companion in the night sky, the light was better for trying to find a new route through the city.
Already they were passing residences, the service alley far behind as they kept to back streets. Lights made owls’ eyes of oval and round windows while the echo of tridee and music drifted out to the otherwise empty streets. There were no bugs to worry about. Industrial electronic repellers kept even the persistent millimite bugs a hundred meters from the nearest structure. Unfortunately, Mimmisompo was not wealthy enough to afford climate control, so it was still hot and humid. Sweat trickled from both refugees as they ran.
“Where are we going?” Clarity gasped. “I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up.” She was breathing with difficulty in the midnight heat.
“You’ll keep it up as long as necessary, because I’m not going to carry you.”
They had left the private homes behind and found themselves surrounded by air pressure domes and fabric warehousing. “I’m looking for the right transportation.”
“I’m not looking for an aircar or slinkem,” he told her tersely. “That’s the first type of vehicle they’d watch for. I want something difficult to trace.” He paused. “This’ll do.”
It didn’t look like much of a fence, only a succession of posts set in the ground five meters apart. Each was six meters high and pulsed with faint yellow light.
“That’s a photic barrier,” she said. “You can’t climb it because there’s nothing to climb, you can’t walk through it, and you can’t tip over any of the posts. Do anything to disrupt the alignment and you’ll probably set off a dozen distinct alarms.”
Once again he ignored her as he studied the half dozen machines parked beneath a rain shield on the far side of the service yard. All were battered and heavily used and unlikely to draw attention to themselves. It was exactly what he wanted for himself and his companion. He settled on a large lumbering skimmer whose back end consisted of compartmentalized cubes for storing prepackaged cargo. It could have been anything from a hazardous-waste dumper to a dairy delivery vehicle. Clarity paid no attention to him. She was scanning the dark buildings they had skirted, looking for silent shapes afoot in the night. She didn’t turn around until she heard the barely audible soft clicking.
From a back pocket Flinx had extracted something the size and shape of a pack of plastic cards. Taking a couple of steps away from the wall, he drew back his arm and flipped the object in a sweeping underhand motion. Instead of sailing in all directions across the damp street, the plastic strips snapped together to form a straight line five meters in length. Using his hands, he bent it in two places to create a rigid U shape taller and considerably wider than his body.
Clarity eyed it dubiously. “What’s that for? It’s not tall or strong enough to use as a ladder.”
“It’s not a ladder. It’s a portable gate.” Pressing one hand against each side of the U’s interior, he lifted the entire frame. Holding it around him like a levitating headdress, he walked right through the photic wall. The glowing sensors didn’t flicker as he intercepted their beams. No alarms flared to life. Pip rode through on his shoulder.
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