Marcus Karl pushed the trolley forward into the main area, his heart pounding in his ears as if it—and they—would burst. For the second time in his life, he had killed a man.
In his uniform, it had been easy to gain entry to the prison level. No one had asked for a pass. His uniform had been enough to get him through. He had gone directly to the kitchens and here he had struck up a conversation with a guard who seemed to be hanging around with little to do.
Marcus had quickly learnt that the man’s name was Levron and it was his duty, in company with the guards Haddash and Methro, to push the food trolley in and serve the prisoners, once the meal had been prepared. He was waiting now while the preparations were made.
Marcus had been able to persuade the man out into the corridor on the promise that he would show him something very special on a portable video unit out there and, once they were alone, he had used the blaster he had stolen to deadly effect.
He had then re-entered the kitchens, quickly located Haddash and Methro, and had informed them that Levron was unwell and had gone to lie down, after asking him to take his place for the night’s detail. It had been almost too easy. So, also, had the order from Ankar Moor regarding the helmets.
Accepted as a replacement with ease, he was now facing what he knew would be the most dangerous moment of his life in his attempt to rescue his father.
A moment of danger came at once. The men’s faces may have been hidden, but the jailer was good at his job and recognised a stranger immediately. He held up his hand for the guards to halt:
“You are not the usual guard.”
Behind his mask, Marcus froze, unable even to breathe, much less to answer. It was Haddish who unwittingly saved him:
“He’s standing in for Levron. Lazy bugger says he isn’t well again, wanted to lie down.”
The jailer nodded, satisfied:
“That bloody Levron, always skiving. You’d think he’d be able to make it on a soft detail like this.”
He signalled the trolley forward and Haddash said to Marcus, “I know the routine. You just follow me and you won’t go wrong.” Both men now went ahead of him, which allowed him to unsnap the holster on his own anti-matter blaster as he went forward. He pushed the trolley down the corridor and came to the first cell on the right. There were two men in the cell and the guard used the special code to unlock the door. At once both guns were trained on the interior against any movement, but the occupants were both Statemen, already cowed and just waiting for the day of their death.
With the cell secure, thanks to the pointed guns, Marcus took the first two bowls and placed them inside the door. As he stepped back, the door closed and locked again.
The same routine was followed at the next cell in the line—the cell that contained Kaz Oshay and Doctor Karl. As soon as the door slid back, Marcus saw his father and his heart leapt.
Now was the moment of greatest danger. He stepped back from the trolley and drew his blaster as the two men stuck the muzzles of their weapons inside the cell. A second later, he shouted:
“Freeze.”
Marcus’s order to the guards came just a split second too late. Kaz Oshay was both unaware of his identity and his intentions. To the Guide, the man who had drawn his gun behind the trolley was but another of the hated guards.
Kaz had taken up a position against the back wall. Now he launched himself in the air across the tiny cell with every ounce of pent-up ferocity that was in him.
He was too quick for the guards, one foot smashing each of them to the ground with their necks broken. His flight carried him on so that he crashed into Marcus, whose head made contact with the far wall and who slid to the floor, unconscious.
He landed lightly and, with no delay, snatched up the blaster that the youth had dropped. He spun round and his eyes caught those of Deneer, staring out from her cell door.
“I will be back.”
He ran as fast as he could down the corridor to the main area. But the head jailer had already heard the sounds of the deadly scuffle. At once, almost by a reflex action, he had hurled himself forward over the console and had tripped off the alarms which now exploded into sound, not only in the prison itself but at key points throughout the City. He then tried to duck down, but he was too late. The anti-matter blaster that Kaz Oshay carried pushed him into the oblivion of space.
Kaz spun to the main door, but he was too late. The anti-blaster shield, that electric field with its green glow, which affords such perfect protection, came down between him and the door, effectively sealing him into the main compound and the cells. While it was down no one would be able to either enter or leave.
Kaz crashed into it and spun back. He fired the blaster at it, but there was no apparent effect. He quickly realised that he had come up against something that would not respond to attack. In such circumstances brains must replace speed and physical skill.
He went to the console and pressed down all the buttons he could find. They did nothing for the shield. That could now only be turned off from outside the compound. The result of his groping was that all the cell doors were opened and the prisoners, Statemen and Guides alike, came pouring into the main hall.
With a scream of animal rage, Kaz Oshay shouted:
“We are sealed in!”
Deneer hurried over to him. He could not help but admire her beauty and grace of movement which so matched her perfect eyes into which he had looked so steadily and for so long.
Varros and Ikar, the two older Guides who had been captured, followed her. All four looked at one another, ignoring the Statemen who were milling around, still bewildered over what had happened:
“Our Union is limited.”
“I agree.” The words of the ritual echoed four times round the group.
“What is the situation?” asked Varros. “Why can we not move from here?”
Kaz answered quickly:
“The jailer threw up the blaster shield inside the entrance before I could get to him. I have tried to blast it out, but I have failed. There is no hope that way.”
Deneer glanced round.
“The shield is only in that direction—perhaps we can blast our way through one of the walls.”
Kaz Oshay nodded. It was worth a try. He glanced round for Doctor Karl but could not see him amongst the milling, bewildered men. He hurried down the corridor back to the cell. The doctor was a man worth rescuing, worth protecting.
Doctor Karl had managed to get to the cell door and was gazing down in amazement. The blow from Kaz Oshay had knocked Marcus’s helmet off as he fell. Deneer and Varros pushed past him, snatched up the guns dropped from the hands of the two dead men and blasted them into eternity. Kaz raised his weapon to do the same to the third man, but Doctor Karl leapt forward, blocking his line of fire:
“For God’s sake, no!”
Kaz lowered the weapon and frowned.
“Why not, Stateman?”
“That is my son.” As he spoke, he knelt anxiously at the youth’s side. A moment later, he smiled. The boy was alive and coming round.
Kaz could not understand.
“You mean your son is one of the hated guards?”
Doctor Karl managed to smile.
“No. He must have been trying to rescue me.”
“He is a brave man then. Truly, like you, he has the outlook of a Guide. I am sorry, I did not know. It is lucky that those other two slowed me up or he would be dead as well.”
Deneer re-emerged from the cell. She pointed her blaster at the ceiling:
“Perhaps that is the way.”
Once again, Doctor Karl leapt forward to knock the gun aside.
“The main fuel lines for the whole City run directly over us. It will explode and we will all die.”
Deneer lowered her gun. Kaz stepped forward. In the short time they had been together he had learned to trust this man. Now it seemed he was familiar enough with the layout of the prison area to be able, perhaps, to show them a way out.
“What lies below us?”
Doctor Karl frowned.
“It’s solid rock. We are on the lowest level of the central City.”
“And around us?”
The doctor shook his head:
“Solid rock again.” He hesitated, then: “Wait a moment, there is one spot with a shared wall, if I can only remember just where. Give me a moment to think.”
Even Kaz’s voice was urgent:
“Please, be as quick as you can. We must hurry. They will be moving against us and we must get free.”
Lord Zirpola had managed to slip into a fitful sleep in the huge chair behind his desk in spite of the oncoming tide of pain that threatened to engulf his reason. Now, as the alarm bells started to sound in his quarters, telling him that there had been a break in security at the prison, he snapped into complete wakefulness.
As he rose, he realised that there was an emergency and pushed the pain away from him. He leapt up and refastened his cloak of office. He put his ornate belt round himself and slipped a blaster into the holster it carried, his mind and body co-ordinating in a way that it had not done for a long time.
He was already out in the corridor by the main bank of elevators when Ankar Moor came striding towards him, strapping on his own blaster.
“What is the alarm?”
Ankar Moor reported quickly. He had already had a status report from Polna and had come prepared.
“The Guides have led a break of all the men in the prison area; all the cells are open, My Lord.”
“Have they broken out of the prison area?”
“No, they are sealed in the compound. That stupid jailer managed to activate the anti-blaster shield before he was annihilated.”
Lord Zirpola felt a rising irritation with Ankar Moor. So the situation was being contained, but why did he have to be so calm about it? He should not have allowed it to happen in the first place.
“And just how do you plan to right the situation?”
The chief of the Obedience Enforcers felt the steel in Zirpola’s tone and realised that, come what may, the blame for the escape and any botch in its handling would be placed squarely on his shoulders.
“We will use the gas.”
Zirpola nodded, pleased with the idea. While he held the lives of the Enforcers as cheaply as did Ankar Moor himself, a major slaughter in the City itself was bound to be heard of by the civilians. They knew something was wrong after all, having heard the alarms, and this would be bad for morale, and what Zirpola liked to call his credibility.
“Are the canisters ready?”
The other man bowed.
“I have given the orders. They are being prepared for release at this moment.”
Zirpola nodded. He had calmed down a little since the first alarm and the pain was coming back. He wanted to be on his own again to fight it. It had not been such a good idea to come out like this, after all.
“Then I think you have things well under control. You will have no need of my assistance. I would like a report on the loss and damage when you have righted the situation.”
With that, he turned on his heel and retreated to the door of his private quarters. As it closed on him, he would have been less calm, had he seen the unnerving look of hatred in Ankar Moor’s eyes.
As it was, he was able to undo the weapon belt and unfasten his cloak before settling down once more in the chair. This time, sleep reached him before the pain got too bad to bear.
The doctor took a great deal more than a minute to come up with the answer. Kaz was beginning to lose faith in his knowledge when he looked up abruptly and pointed to the blank wall at the end of the cells:
“I know it. It’s down there at the end.”
He led the way to the blank wall at the end of the corridor between the two rows of cells. Hot on his heels were Kaz, Deneer, Varros and Ikar, then a still dizzy Marcus. The other prisoners began to move down the corridor after them, jamming themselves into the corridor to do so.
The doctor pointed to the wall:
“That’s the only shared wall-space.”
“What is on the other side?”
“Another corridor as far as I can remember. But I don’t think a hand blaster will be able to cut through it. The wall is at least five foot thick and has steel bars in it.”
Kaz nodded.
“This other corridor—does it lead anywhere or will the alarms have cut it off like this one?”
The doctor frowned:
“No. It will not be isolated. It is somewhere in the headquarters of the Obedience forces. I’m not sure exactly where. I was only in there once to deal with an accident case.”
Kaz nodded, before turning to Deneer, Varros and Ikar:
“We will have to fire in sequence. That is the only way. We have a big job, even for the blasters.”
It was then that he noticed the bewildered Statemen crowding in, some of them like the doctor himself, others tough, hardened criminals who really belonged in these cells.
“We must clear these people out if they are not to be hurt by the blasters.”
Most of the Statemen began to back away, but one of their number stood his ground. This was Durc, a massive man, powerful of arm and scarred of face, a picture of evil. He was a murderer and had been rightly convicted of the charge. He was determined that he would not die in the Death Sport, but was pleased of a chance to avoid the test.
“I’ll move for no other man. What do you think you are going to do? It will be impossible to blast your way out of here. The wall is far too thick for the hand-guns.”
It was Deneer who turned on him, her eyes blazing so that even he was forced to back away from her. He was a brave man but he had never faced the anger and authority of one of the Guides.
“Stand back, or I will blast you now.”
Durc backed away, but he was not prepared to surrender his self-esteem in the process.
“You’re crazy! What do you think you’re going to do? You’ll just get us all killed.”
Another prisoner gave the answer:
“They do not care about their lives, only their freedom. They are Range Guides.”
“That is right,” nodded Deneer. “We are the free, even in a prison cell we are our own masters. Now we have a chance to make you all free again. Get back in your cells. Move quickly. You will be safe there.”
Even Durc was prepared to back down in the face of this conviction. Still grumbling to his fellow-prisoners as he went, he hurried back into one of the nearby cells, so that Doctor Karl and Marcus were the only Statemen prisoners left standing with the Guides.
Kaz turned to them.
“You two go to the main hall—let us know if the anti-blaster shield is lifted. They could be getting ready to attack us.”
The two men nodded. With no argument, they trotted down the corridor until they found themselves in the main hall, where the shield was still holding firm.
Back at the end of the corridor, the Guides suddenly realised that there were only three blasters between the four of them. Ikar stood back while the others got in line. Kaz said:
“We will go in sequence. I will give the first blast at the aiming spot. Are we ready to act in Union?”
“We are,” replied Deneer and Varros.
With that, Kaz raised his blaster and fired, the other two following in quick succession. Again and again, the firing sequence was repeated. At first the wall only showed scorch marks, but after a while a gouge mark began to appear in the wall as the blasters bit deeper and deeper. The next halt came as the iron bars that were half-way through appeared, gleaming in the light.
Kaz and the others paused in their task to adjust the aiming angle of their blasters, then aimed them at the bars, half-melting and half cutting through them with every shot they took. It was a lengthy labour, but at last the bars were gone and they were dealing with concrete again. The sweat was pouring off them, but they kept on in regular sequence, with the concentration that only the R
ange Guides have.
It was as they started their attack on the second thickness of concrete that the gas began to come. It eddied down out of the vents in grey clouds, unnoticeable at first, but falling thicker and thicker.
The prisoners in the cells noticed it first and began to cough and rub their watering eyes. They did not realise the significance until it was too late, thinking in the early stages that it was merely a dust cloud set up by the blasting.
In the main area, Doctor Karl glanced up at the ceiling at the same moment as the gas began to attack his lungs and skin. A moment later and the prisoners who had not yet succumbed began to shout in pain as it attacked their nervous systems.
As much as he could, Doctor Karl held his breath, and, beckoning Marcus to follow him, he ran down the corridor to the Guides. They arrived just at the moment when Deneer’s shot finally cut a hole through to the corridor on the far side and they were able to see the lighted area beyond. They were too close to be beaten. It was a triumph of endurance and patience, for the wall was nearer seven feet than five.
Doctor Karl shouted: “The gas. Look out for the gas.”
But his warning was too late. A great cloud of it now billowed round them, filling the hallway. The Guides, with their greater endurance, held their breath and began to blast away, making the hole bigger and bigger, but their precautions did them no good. For this was nerve gas that Ankar Moor had ordered to be released; it attacked through the skin as virulently as through the lungs.
Even so, the endurance of the Guides was greater than that of the Statemen and they were still widening the hole as the doctor and his son slumped to the ground.
The sound of the prisoners had died away, telling that they too had been rendered unconscious. Varros and Ikar fell first, leaving Kaz and Deneer still working away with renewed determination. But in the end, they too were overcome. Kaz succumbed first, slumping to the ground, the gun falling away from him. Deneer turned as he fell, ready to help him up if she could in spite of the great pain she was feeling in her chest. But as she bent, she too slumped into unconsciousness, her head falling on to his chest, her hair covering his face.
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