There was darkness—complete insofar as Grimes and the members of the audience and the guards were concerned. Grimes had misjudged slightly, made heavy contact with Shirl’s naked body a fraction of a second before he anticipated it. He heard the ough as the air was driven from her lungs. Both his hands went up to her left wrist, found the strap securing it to the arm of the cross. He slashed, felt the soft leather or plastic or whatever it was fall away. (That knife was sharp.) Then her right wrist . . . (At least one stungun was in operation now, to judge from the vicious buzzing, but the shooting was wild.) Then her right ankle. (She emitted a little scream as he inadvertently nicked her skin.) Then her left . . .
Freed from the cross she fell against him, then pushed away, saying, “Look after Darleen . . .”
He stumbled towards the other crucifix. He almost missed it, found it only by tripping over Darleen’s right foot. Even though he fell he did not lose his hold on the knife. He scrambled to his feet, went to work on the girl’s bonds. Meanwhile Shirl, to whom the glow from the brazier afforded adequate illumination, must have made her way to the table with the knives. There was no more buzzing of misaimed stunguns. There were shouts, screams. Somebody was yelling, “Lights! Lights!”
Darleen was released. Without a word she ran to join Shirl. Perhaps there were now no knives left to throw but there were still the hot irons and, in the arena she had preferred a club to throwing weapons . . .
But where was the rack? Where was Fenella Pruin? It was still too dark for anybody with normal eyesight to find his way around in the theatre and he had now lost all sense of direction.
“Fenella!” he shouted.
“Here!” Then, “Get a bloody move on!” she cried.
He stumbled in the direction from which her voice had come. He found the rack the hard way, crashing into it, falling full length on to her nude body. She snapped irritably, “I want you to cut me loose, not make love to me!”
This time he had dropped the knife. He slid off her, down to the floor. He scrabbled around under the rack, to both sides of it. Then there was a brief flare of actinic light as one of Shirl’s missiles hit some piece of electrical equipment, shorting it out. He saw the gleam of metal close by his groping hand. Just in time he was able to stop himself from picking it up by the blade.
As he cut through Fenella’s bonds he realised that the theatre was now very quiet. All of the audience must either have escaped or been killed. (He did not think that they could have put up much of a fight.) Fenella pulled herself to her feet by holding on to his shoulders.
She asked, “What now?”
It was a good question, too good.
He said, after hesitation, “I kill you. Then the other two girls. Then myself.”
“What!”
“Do you think that they will give us an easy death after all this?”
“So you want to die? I don’t.”
And neither did he, thought Grimes. But what chance of survival was there?
Yet the theatre should have been swarming with armed guards by now. It was not. Surely the show in which he, Fenella, Shirl and Darleen were the stars must have been monitored . . . Perhaps the monitoring was only a recording, with nobody watching it live . . . Perhaps the survivors of the massacre were still trying to find their way through the maze of tunnels and had not yet met anybody to whom to report that the actor and actresses had strayed from the script.
“Shirl! Darleen!” he called.
They came to him, their bodies palely luminous in the near-darkness.
“Some escaped,” said Shirl. “We didn’t get them all . . .”
“We have to escape ourselves. Find women about your build among the corpses. Strip them. Completely. Get dressed. And you, Fenella.”
He found the body of a man. A thrown knife had penetrated his brain through his left eye, so there was not much blood. Grimes, hating the feel of the dead flesh, removed the shirt, the kilt, the underwear. At this latter he wrinkled his nose in disgust. He dressed in the shirt and kilt, found that the dead man’s shoes fitted his feet.
Not far from him Fenella Pruin had taken the long dress off a tall, slim woman who no longer needed it, had put it on. She looked at him and said, “Let’s go.”
“Underwear,” Grimes told her.
“But I can’t wear that. She . . .”
“People usually do when they die. Take those panties off her and hide them under a seat. When the guards get here they’ll find, among the other bodies, four completely naked ones. They’ll think—for a short while—that they’re us. I hope. Ready, all of you?”
“Ready!” said Shirl and Darleen.
“All right. Let’s get out of here.”
He led the way along an aisle. All the EXIT lights were out, of course, but surely an egress would not be hard to find. They passed through an opaquely panelled revolving door into a corridor that was, by comparison with the darkness of the theatre, brightly lit.
At the far end of this was a large group of men, running towards them.
Chapter 21
SO THE GUARDS were on the way at last. How much did they know? Would it be possible, Grimes wondered, to bluff his way past them?
“Leave this to me . . .” whispered Fenella Pruin.
She ran towards the advancing party of armed men, staggering a little. (Her requisitioned sandals, Grimes learned later, were a size too small.) She yelled indignantly, “It took you long enough to get here!” Then, hysterically, “They’re all dead in there! Dead! And what are you doing about it? I didn’t pay good money to come here to be murdered! It’s a disgrace! Vicious criminals allowed to run amuck with weapons! I’ll sue!” She was screaming now. “I’ll sue!”
The officer, a burly brute in grey leather, brass-studded shirt and kilt uniform raised a hand as though to dam the flood of angry words.
“Lady,” he expostulated, “we have only just been told. By another lady who escaped . . .”
“Only just been told! What sort of supervision is there in this dump? Where do I find the manager?”
He ignored this question, asked one of his own.
“How many of them are there, and how armed?”
“With knives, iron bars, anything. There are four of them, a man and three women. Or there were . . .”
“There were?”
“When they got among us and started killing we managed to hide. Under the seats. And then . . . And then I peeped out and saw that they were fighting among themselves. Like wild beasts they were. So we made a break for it and ran . . .”
“I can’t waste any more time on you, lady,” said the officer brusquely. “I have to get in there to clear up the mess.” He turned to Grimes. “Sir, will you accompany us? You might help to identify a few corpses.”
“Not bloody likely!” sputtered Grimes indignantly. “It’s your mess. You clear it up.” He turned to the women. “Come, Angelica.” (It was the first name that came into his head.) “And you two ladies. We will make our complaints to the manager.”
“As you please, sir.” He signalled to his men and led them in a brisk trot to the theatre entrance.
Grimes and the women walked, not too fast, along the corridor. They came to a cross passage, paused to take stock. The women had been quick-witted enough to pick up handbags although Grimes had not thought to tell them to do so. His own kilt had come with attached sporran. In this he found an almost empty notecase and another, much fatter, wallet containing credit cards and other documentation. There was also a passport. The late owner of all this had been a Wilburn Callis, M.D., a native of Carinthia. Photograph and other data did not match Grimes’ personal specifications. Then, most importantly, there was a card issued by the Colosseum airport; the late Dr. Callis, whose medical researches had been so rudely interrupted, had flown here on his own—or rented—wings.
Fenella Pruin, according to the contents of her handbag, was Vera Slovnik, also from Carinthia. Like Dr. Callis, Ms. Slovnik had preferred credit cards
to folding money. Shirl was Lisbeth McDonald from Rob Roy, one of the Waverley planets, and Darleen was Eulalie Jones from Caribbea. As the two New Alicians could almost have passed for twin sisters this would prove awkward if, for any reason, a show of passports were demanded.
Hastily restowing money and papers the party walked on. Fortunately the corridor that they had taken was not a well-frequented one; almost certainly the main thoroughfare to the theatre from which they had escaped must now be extremely busy, with guards, stretcher parties and, thought Grimes with unkind satisfaction, the meat wagons.
They came to a large, illuminated wall map showing the various levels. There was more than one theatre, Grimes saw. The one from which they had escaped was the Grand Guignol. Then there were the Living Barbecue, the Operating Theatre and the Dungeon. But it was the airport that Grimes wanted. It was not very far from where they now found themselves. He memorised the directions and set off at a brisk walk, the women following. A moving way carried them on the last stage of their journey.
And then they were out into the cool night and Grimes, having handed over the card, was paying the charges due from the late Dr. Callis’ money. Relief at having escaped from the horrors of the Snuff Palace was making him talkative. No, he told the attendant, he hadn’t heard about the disturbance in the Grand Guignol. He and the ladies were checking out because, frankly, they found all this old-fashioned sadism rather boring, as a spectator sport. If members of the audience were allowed to participate—no, not as victims, ha, ha—it would be much more fun . . . So perhaps a spot of hunting at Camp Diana would be more entertaining . . . And the camperfly? Fuelled and provisioned? Thank you, thank you . . . (Money—not too much but just enough—changed hands.) And Aisle D, Number 7? Thank you, thank you . . .
They boarded the chubby aircraft and, with Grimes at the controls, lifted. He told Airport Control that the destination was Camp Diana.
Once they were up and clear Fenella Pruin turned on him and asked viciously, “Why did you have to run off at the mouth like that? It’s a miracle that you didn’t spill the beans!”
“I thought that it was in character . . .” said Grimes lamely.
“Whose character? Yours?”
“Leave him alone!” cried Darleen loyally. “He got us out of here, didn’t he?”
“It was just his famous luck,” snarled the Pruin. “Just hope and pray that it lasts.”
Amen, thought Grimes. A-bloody-men.
Chapter 22
THERE WAS A FULL SET OF CHARTS aboard the camperfly, covering all of New Venusberg. There was electronic navigational equipment. There was an autopilot. It was a much bigger and far more luxurious aircraft than the one that Grimes had hired—how long ago?—at Port Aphrodite, one designed for use by tourists utterly lacking in airmanlike or navigational skills and to whom money would be no object.
Normally Grimes would have sneered at such a machine; he preferred to do things for himself rather than to have them done for him by robots. His contempt for push-button navigators was notorious. But now he would be content to leave things to the electronic intelligence while he got some much needed rest. It could be relied upon—he hoped—to steer a safe course over the seas, through the mountain passes, to Port Aphrodite. Little Sister must still be there. Once aboard her he and the women would be able to make their escape from this world of commercialised sex and sadism.
If his luck held.
For a while, however, he flew on manual control, on ostensible course for Camp Diana, until the camperfly was screened from sight of the Colosseum airport by the high hills. (On the chart the name Colosseum was not used; there was just an unnamed valley.) Then he switched to automatic and pushed the Port Aphrodite button, waited until he was sure that the aircraft had come around to the correct heading before going aft into the capacious cabin. Somebody, he saw, had been busy. There was a meal set out on the table—a tray of savoury pastries, a big pot of coffee, a bottle of brandy. Grimes looked and sniffed in anticipatory appreciation. Obviously the late Dr. Callis had believed in doing himself well.
Darleen got up from her own seat, made a production of getting Grimes settled into a comfortable chair. Shirl poured him a mug of steaming coffee. Fenella Pruin watched sardonically.
“And now,” she said, “perhaps the conquering hero will tell us what he intends doing next.”
Grimes sipped his coffee, nibbled a pastry. He said. “I’ve set course for Port Aphrodite . . .”
“Straight back to your beloved Little Sister, of course.”
“Do you have a sister, John?” asked Shirl. “You never told us.”
“It’s his ship,” said Fenella.
The soft, background music, of which Grimes had hardly been conscious, was interrupted. “This is a news flash. A camperfly, number SCF2011, has been stolen from a private mountain resort in Caligula Valley. Its charterer, Dr. Wilburn Callis, a visitor to New Venusberg, was murdered. Aboard the aircraft are two underpeople, females, and two true humans, a man and a woman. All four are dangerous criminals. Aircraft are requested to keep a sharp lookout for the stolen vehicle and to report any sighting at once.
“It is believed that the criminals will be heading towards Port Aphrodite.”
The interrupted music resumed. Grimes gulped what was left of his coffee but his enjoyment of it had been ruined. Obviously the stolen camperfly was no longer an asset but a liability. He did not know what the aerial capability of the planetary police forces was but was certain that it must be considerable.
“Well,” asked Fenella Pruin, “what are you going to do about it?”
He reached out for the box of Caribbean cigars, selected one of the slim, brown cylinders. It would not be as good as a pipe but he had long considered the fumes of smouldering tobacco an aid to thought. He ignited it with a flick of his fingernail, put the other end to his mouth. He inhaled. Shirl poured him more coffee.
“Aren’t you going to do something?” demanded Fenella Pruin.
“I have no intention of flying into a screaming tizzy,” he told her. “To begin with, I’m going to land. There may or may not be something flyable at the Colosseum that has the heels of us, but if there is it’ll be after us as soon as they get it airborne . . .”
He got up from his chair, went forward to the control cab. He studied the screen which depicted the terrain over which they were flying, looked at the chart. But before he could bring the camperfly down he would have to get off the rhumb line—or was it a great circle course?—between the Colosseum and Port Aphrodite. There was enough metal in the camperfly’s construction to make it a radar target, an anomalous echo that would be picked up by the instruments of pursuing aircraft.
He switched to manual, made a bold alteration of course to starboard. And was that a deep valley showing in the screen, ahead and a little to port? It was a dark rift of some kind, meandering through the general luminescence. He transferred his attention to the all-around lookout radar. The sky—ahead, astern, to both sides—was empty. So far. But he decided that it would be too big a risk to use landing lights.
At reduced speed he drifted down. The worst part of it was that the control cab was not designed for making a visual landing—not that much could be seen in the darkness. He watched the radar altimeter. Yes, that was a valley, or a canyon, and a deep one. He was directly over it now.
He stopped engines. The camperfly had sufficient buoyancy from its gas cells for its descent to be gentle. There was enough breeze, however, for it to be blown off its planned descent. Grimes restarted the engines to maneuver the unwieldy aircraft back into position, making allowance for leeway. But he could not foresee that at ground level there would be an eddy. The camperfly, instead of dropping neatly into the canyon, the walls of which gave ample clearance, drifted to the leeward rim. The port wing of the aircraft fouled something, crumpled. There was a loud hiss of escaping helium, audible even in the cabin. At first there was a violent lurch to starboard and then, as the damaged wing, n
o longer buoyant, tore free of the obstruction, a heeling over to port. On its side the camperfly dropped into the gulf. Luckily there was sufficient lift remaining in the undamaged gas cells for the descent to be a relatively gentle one.
She struck, with the port wing acting as a fender, cracking up beneath her. She settled, then almost at once was on the move again. Heavy blows shook her structure from beneath, from both sides. A strange, somehow fluid, roaring noise was audible in the control cab.
Grimes extricated himself from the tangle of female arms and legs into which he had been thrown, not as gently as he would have done in a situation of lesser urgency. He ignored the outraged squeals of the women. The dim lighting in the control cab was still on. He saw, through what had been the upper surface of the transparent dome and which was now a wall, this luminescence reflected from a black, swirling surface.
Water.
The camperfly had fallen into a swift running river and was being borne rapidly downstream. Even if she were holed by the rocks into which she was crashing there would be no danger of her sinking as long as the remaining gas cells remained intact. The situation, thought Grimes, could have been worse. This was better than either the Colosseum or the Snuff Palace.
Out of the frying pan, he thought, and into the washing up water . . .
Chapter 23
THE WOMEN SORTED themselves out, crawled aft into the main cabin. They reported that the camperfly did not seem to be making water. Shirl returned with cushions so that Grimes could make himself comfortable, Darleen brought him a bottle of brandy. He should, he knew, stay awake—but he had been through too much. If he forced himself to remain fully conscious for what remained of the night he would be in no fit state to cope with any emergencies that might arise. And he wanted Shirl and Darleen, who had already proven themselves, to be fighting fit when needed.
Galactic Courier: The John Grimes Saga III Page 41