by Larry Niven
"Suddenly we'd have a thousand crew looking down at us. It might be a mistake to use the void at all. Castro may have thought of that. We'll be safe if the fog holds. But whatever we do, we'll have to wait 'til dark."
Matt stood up and stretched muscles that felt knotted. "Okay. So we get to the Hospital. How do we get in? — Laney, what's an electric eye?"
She told him.
"Oh. I didn't see any light... Ultraviolet, of course, or infrared. I should be able to get over that."
"We."
"You're not invisible, Laney."
"I am if I stick close to you."
"Phut. "
"I'll have to come that far with you anyway. You can't program an autopilot."
Matt got up to pace. "Leave that a moment. How do we get over the wall?"
"I don't," said Laney, and stopped. "There may be a way," she said. "Leave it to me."
"Tell me."
"I can't."
The cold breeze outside had become a wind, audible through the walls. Laney shivered, though the electric fire was hot enough. The fog beyond the south windows was growing dark.
"We'll need guns," she said.
"I don't want to take one of yours. You've only got the two we picked up on the way to the car."
"Matt, I know more than you do about crew. They all go in for sports of one kind or another."
"So?"
"Some of them hunt. A long time ago Earth sent us some frozen fertilized deer and caribou ova in a cargo ramrobot. The Hospital hatched them out, grew 'em to adulthood and scattered them around the bottom edge of the glacier, north of here. There's enough grass there to keep them happy."
"Then we might find guns here."
"It's a good bet. The richer a crew is, the more sports equipment he buys. Even if he never uses it."
The gun rack was in a room in the upper story, a room lined with paintings of more—or—less wild—animals and with heads and hooves of deer and caribou. The rack held half—a—dozen air—powered rifles. They searched the room, and eventually Laney found a drawer containing several boxes of crystal slivers, each sliver two inches long.
"They look like they'd stop a bandersnatch," said Matt. He'd never seen a bandersnatch, except in filmed maser messages from Jinx, but he knew they were big.
"They'll stop an elk cold. But the guns only fire one at a time. You have to be accurate."
"Makes it more sporting?"
"I guess so."
Implementation mercy—guns fired a steady stream of tiny slivers. One would make the victim woozy; it took half a dozen to drop him in his tracks.
Matt closed and pocketed the box of oversized mercy—slivers. "Getting hit with one of these would be like being stabbed with an ice pick, even without the knockout effect. Will they kill a man?"
"I don't know," said Laney. She chose two guns from the rack. "We'll take these."
"Jay!"
Hood stopped halfway to the living room, turned, and made for the entrance hall.
Lydia Hancock was bending over Millard Parlette. She had folded his flaccid hands neatly in his lap. "Come here and have a look at this."
Hood looked down at the stunned crew. Millard Parlette was coming around. His eyes didn't track and wouldn't focus, but they were open. Hood saw something else, and he bent for a closer look.
The crew's hands didn't match. The skin of one was mottled with age. It couldn't be as old as Parlette must be, but he hadn't replaced the skin in a good long time. From fingertips to elbow the arm showed a curious lack of personality, of what Hood decided was artistic continuity. Part of that might have been imagination. Hood knew in advance that Parlette must have used the organ banks continuously during his lifetime. But no imagination was needed to see that the left hand was dry and mottled and faintly callused, with cracked fingernails and receding quick.
Whereas the skin of the right hand was like a baby's, smooth and pink, untanned, almost translucent. The quick of the fingernails ran all the way to the tips of the fingers. Many high school students could not have said the same.
"The old love—child just got a transplant job," said Hood.
"No. Look here." Lydia pointed to the wrist. There was a ragged band of color, something less than an inch wide, running round Parlette's wrist. It was a dead milky—white such as Hood had never seen in human skin.
"Here too." A similar ring circled the first joint of Parlette's thumb. The thumbnail was cracked and dry, with a badly receding quick.
"Right, Lydia. But what is it? An artificial hand?"
"With a gun inside, maybe. Or a radio."
"Not a radio. They'd be all over us by now." Hood took Parlette's right hand and rolled the joints in his fingers. He felt old bone and muscle under the baby skin, and joints that would be arthritic someday soon. "This is a real human hand. But why didn't he get the whole thing replaced?"
"We'll have to let him tell us."
Hood stood up. He felt clean and rested and well fed. If they had to wait for Parlette to talk, they'd picked a nice place to wait.
Lydia asked, "How's Laney doing with Keller?"
"I don't know. I'm not going to try to find out."
"That must be tough, Jay." Lydia laughed a barking laugh. "You've spent half your life trying to find psychic powers on Plateau. Now one finally shows up, and he doesn't want to play with us."
"I'll tell you what really bothers me about Matt Keller. I grew up with him. In school I never noticed him, except one time when he got me mad at him." Absently he rubbed a point on his chest with two fingertips. "He was right under my nose all the time. But I was right, wasn't I? Psi powers exist, and we can use them against the Hospital."
"Can we?"
"Laney's persuasive. If she can't talk him around, I sure, can't."
"You're not pretty enough."
"I'm prettier than you."
The barking laugh rang again. "Touché!"
"I knew it," said Laney. "It had to be the basement."
Two walls were covered with various kinds of small tools. Tables held an electric drill and a bandsaw. There were drawers of nails, screws, nuts ...
Matt said, "Parlette the Younger must have done a lot of building."
"Not necessarily. It may be just a hobby. Come on, Matt, get your wrists down here. I think I see the saw we want."
Twenty minutes later he was rubbing bare wrists, scratching furiously where he'd been unable to scratch before. His arms felt ten pounds lighter without the handcuffs.
The time of waiting sat heavily on Jesus Pietro.
It was long past quitting time. From the windows of his office he could see the trapped forest as a darker blur in a darkening gray mist. He'd called Nadia and told her not to expect him home that night. The night shift was in charge of the Hospital, reinforced at Jesus Pietro's orders with scores of extra guards.
Soon he'd have to alert them for what he expected. Right now he was trying to decide what to say.
He wasn't about to impress them with the startling news that all of five prisoners were loose somewhere on Alpha Plateau. They would already have heard about the escape. They'd leave the mop—up job to the hunting squads.
Jesus Pietro activated the intercom. "Miss Lauessen, please connect me with all of the Hospital intercoms."
"Will do." She didn't always call him Sir. Miss Lauessen had more crew blood than Jesus Pietro — she was nearly pure — and she had powerful protectors. Fortunately she was a pleasant person and a good worker. If she ever became a disciplinary problem — !
"You're on, sir."
"This is the Head," said Jesus Pietro. "You all know of the man captured last night infiltrating the Hospital. He and several others escaped this morning. I have information that he was scouting the Hospital defenses in preparation for an attack to take place tonight.
"Sometime between now and dawn the Sons of Earth will almost certainly attack the Hospital. You have all been issued maps of the Hospital showing the locations of auto
matic protective—devices installed today. Memorize them, and don't stumble into any of the traps. I have issued orders for maximum dosage of anesthetic in these traps, and they can kill. Repeat, they can kill.
"I think it unlikely that the rebels will make any kind of frontal attack." Unlikely, indeed! Jesus Pietro smiled at the understatement. "You should be alert for attempts to infiltrate the Hospital possibly by using our own uniforms. Keep your identification handy. If you see someone you do not recognize, ask for his ident. Compare him with the photo. The rebels have not had time to forge idents.
"One last word. Don't be reluctant to shoot each other."
He signed off, waited for Miss Lauessen to clear the lines, then had her contact the Power Sections. "Cut off all power to the colonist regions of the Plateau until dawn," he told them.
The men of Power took pride in their work, and their work was to keep the power running. There were loud protests. "Do it," said Jesus Pietro, and cut them off.
Once again he thought longingly of issuing death darts to his men. But then they would be afraid to shoot each other. Worse, they'd fear their own weapons. Never since the Covenant of Planetfall had Implementation used deadly weapons. In any case the poison slivers had been stored so long that they'd probably lost their effectiveness.
He'd raised hell with tradition tonight; there'd be hell to pay if nothing happened. But he knew something would. It wasn't just the fact that this was the last chance for the rebels to get their prisoners out of the vivarium, it was the cold certainty in Jesus Pietro's viscera. Something would happen.
A vague red line divided black sky from black land. It faded gradually, and suddenly the Hospital lights came on outside, making the night white. Somebody brought Jesus Pietro dinner, and he ate hurriedly, and kept the coffeepot when the tray was gone.
"Down there," said Laney.
Matt nodded and pushed in the fan levers. They dropped toward a medium—sized dwelling that at first glance looked like a large, flat haystack. There were windows in the haystack, and on one side was a porchlike platform. Under the porch was an oddly curved swimming pool. Lights showed at the windows, and the swimming pool area blazed with light. The water itself was lit from underneath. There was no rooftop landing—zone, but on the other side of the house were two cars.
"I'd have picked an empty house, myself." Matt was commenting, not criticizing. He'd decided hours ago that Laney was the expert in rebellion.
"Then what? Even if you found a car, where would you get the keys? I picked this one because most of them will be out in plain sight by the pool. There, see them? Hover the car and I'll see how many I can pick off."
They'd flown east along the void, flying blind in the fog, staying far from the edge, so that even the sound of their fans would not carry. Finally, miles east of the Parlette mansion, they'd turned inland. Matt flew with the gun balanced beside him on the seat. He'd never owned anything with such power in it. It gave him a warm feeling of security and invulnerability.
Laney was in the back seat, where she could fire from either window. Matt couldn't tell how many people were down around the swimming pool. But the guns had telescopic sights.
There were pops like balloons exploding. "One," said Laney. "Two. Oop, here comes another ... Three, and out. Okay, Matt, drop her fast. Yeee! Not that fast, Matt."
"Listen, did I get us down or didn't I?"
But she was out and running for the house. Matt followed more slowly. The swimming pool steamed like a huge bathtub. He saw two fallen crew near the pool, and a third near the glass doors to the house, and he blushed, for they were naked. Nobody had ever told him that crew threw nude swimming—parties. Then he noticed blood pooling under a woman's neck, and he stopped blushing. Clothing was trivia here.
From the pool area the house still looked like a haystack, but with more normal solid structures showing through the grassy yellow sides. Inside it was vastly different from Geoffrey Eustace Pariette's house; the walls were all curved, and a conical false fireplace occupied the center of the living room. But there, was the same air of luxury.
Matt heard a pop like a balloon exploding, and he ran.
He rounded a door jamb as he heard the second pop. A man stood behind a polished table dialing a handphone. He was beginning to fall as Matt saw him: a brawny middle—aged crew wearing nothing but a few drops of water and an expression of ultimate terror. He was looking straight at Laney. One hand pawed at a blood spot on his ribs. His terror seemed to fade as he fell, but Matt remembered it. Being hunted was bad in itself, but being hunted naked must be far worse. Naked had always been synonymous with "unprotected."
"Try the upstairs," said Laney. She was reloading the gun. "We'll have to find where they changed. If you find a pair of pants, search the pockets for keys. Hurry; we can't stay here long."
He came down a few minutes later with a bunch of keys dangling from his finger. "They were in the bedroom," he said.
"Good. Throw'em away."
"Was that a funny?"
"I found these." She too had a key ring. "Think it through. Those clothes upstairs must belong to the owner of the house. If we take his car, Implementation can trace it back here. It may not matter; I can't think of any way they could trace us from here back to Parlette's. But if we take a visitors car, they can't trace us anywhere. So these are the ones we want. You can ditch yours."
They went back to the pool area for Parlette's car. Laney opened the dash and fiddled inside. "I don't dare send it back," she muttered. "Harry'll have to use the other one. Ah .... So I'll just send it ten miles up and tell it to head south forever. Okay, Matt, let's go."
They found a key to fit one of the cars on the roof. Matt flew, east and north, directly toward the Hospital.
The fog had not been abnormally thick on the ground, but at this height it was the edge of Creation. Matt flew for an hour before he saw a faint yellow blur to the left.
"The Hospital." Laney agreed. They turned.
A faint yellow blur on the left... and white lights forming and clarifying all around them.
Matt dropped the car instantly.
They came down hard on water. As the car bobbed to the surface, they dived out opposite doors. Matt came up gasping with the cold. The fans washed spray over him, and he turned his face to avoid it. Ducks quacked in panic.
The white lights were dropping toward them. Matt called, "Where are we?"
"Parlette Park, I think."
Matt stood up in the water, waist deep, holding his gun high. The car skidded across the duck pond, hesitated at the edge, and then continued on until it nudged into a hedge. The fog was turning yellowish gray as car lights dropped toward the pond.
A thought struck him. "Laney. Got your gun?"
"Yah."
"Test it."
He heard it puff. "Good," he said, and pitched his own gun away. He heard it splash.
Car lights were settling all around them. Matt swam toward the sound of Laney's shot until he bumped into her. He took her arm and whispered, "Stay close." They waded toward shore. He could feel her shivering. The water was cold, but when they stood up, the wind was colder.
"What happened to your gun?"
"I threw it away. My whole purpose in life is being scared, isn't it? Well, I can't get scared with a gun in my hand."
They stumbled onto the grass. White lights surrounded them at ground level, faintly blurred by the lifting mist. Others hovered overhead, spotlights casting a universal glow over the park. In that light men showed as running black silhouettes. A car settled on the water behind them, gently as a leaf.
"Put me through to the Head," said Major Chin. He rested at ease in the back seat of his car. The car sat a foot above the water on a small duck pond in Parlette Park, supported on its ground—effect air cushion. In such a position it was nearly invulnerable to attack.
"Sir? We've caught a stolen car .... Yes, sir, it must have been stolen; it landed the moment we flew over to investigate. Went d
own like a falling elevator .... It was flying straight toward the Hospital. I imagine we're about two miles southwest of you. They must have abandoned the car immediately after landing it on a duck pond .... Yes, sir, very professional. The car ran into a hedge and just stayed there, trying to butt its way through on autopilot... License number B—R—G—Y .... No, sir, nobody in it, but we've surrounded the area. They won't get through... No, sir, nobody's seen them yet. They may be in the trees. But we'll smoke them out."
A puzzled expression chased itself across his smooth round face. "Yes, sir," he said, and signed off. He thought about directing the search by beltphone, but he had no further orders to give. All around him were the lights of police cars. The search pattern was fixed. When someone found something, he'd call.
But what had the Head meant by that last remark? "Don't be surprised if you don't find anyone."
His eyes narrowed. The car a decoy, on autopilot? But what would that accomplish?
Another car flying in above him. This empty car to hold his attention while the other got through.
He used the beltphone. "Carson, you there? Lift your car out of there. Up to a thousand feet. Turn on your lights and hover and see what you can pick up on infrared. Stay there until we call off the search."
It was some time before he found out how badly he'd missed the mark.
__________
"Calling Major Chin," said Doheny, hovering one hundred feet above Parlette Park. Controlled excitement tinged his voice with the thrill of the chase.
"Sir? I've got an infrared spot just leaving the pond .... Could be two people; this fog is messing up my imagine ... Western shore. They're out now, moving toward where all the men are milling around .... You don't? They're there; I swear it... Okay, okay, but if they aren't there, then something's wrong with my infrascope — sir .... Yes, sir."
Annoyed but obedient, Doheny settled back and watched the dim red spot merge with the bigger spot that was a car motor. That tears it, he thought; that makes them police, whether they're real or not.