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The prison was well within the anthro profile that fit Saxon. Build an unbreakable cell, and throw
everybody into it you don't like. Feed them enough so they don't starve noisily, and then forget them.
What happens in the cell is no one's concern.
He just hoped that Sa'fail was still alive.
Sten found a wall and put his back to it. Waiting, Lousy, he decided. It took about ten minutes for the
bully-boy and his thugs to loom up in the blackness.
Sten didn't bother asking. The heel of his hand snapped the head villain's neck back, a sideslash
dropped him while he gargled the ruins of his larynx. The second received a fist behind the ear as Sten
bounced off the man's dead leader.
He threw the second corpse into the third man's incoming fists, then half turned, foot poised. The third
man de* cided to stay down.
"Sa'fail. Of the Black Tents. Where is he?"
The toady grimaced. Thought was obviously not one of his major operational abilities. Sten was patient.
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The toady looked at Sten's ready strike, grunted. "In that corner. The dreadful ones keep their own."
Sten grinned his thanks and snapped his foot out. Cartilage smashed, the man howled and went down.
Sten bent over the man. He decided he wouldn't have to kill him. The toady would be too busy bleeding
for an hour or so to backjump Sten and that, he hoped sincerely, was all it would take.
He worked his way through the bodies, softly calling the nomad's name. And found him. Sa'fail had an
entourage. Sten looked them up and down. Surprisingly healthy for prisoners. He wondered if they'd
gotten to recycling their fellow prisoners to stay healthy yet.
The nomad sat up and stroked his beard.
"You are not of the People," the one who must have been Sa'fail's lieutenant said.
"I am not that, O Hero of the Desert and Man Who Makes the Slime Q'riya Tremble," Sten said fluently
in the desert dialect "But I have long admired you from afar."
The nomad chuckled. "I am honored that you found your admiration so overwhelming you must join me
here in my palace."
"Much as I would like to exchange compliments, O He Who Makes the Wadihs Tremble," Sten said, "I
would suggest that you and your men get very close to that wall over there. You have" Sten thought a
moment "not very long."
"What will happen?" the lieutenant asked. "Very shortly most of this prison will cease to exist." The
nomads buzzed then snapped silent as Sa'fail motioned.
"This is not a jest, I assume?"
"If it were, I would find it less funny than even you."
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"Even so, although your consideration might be for a brief time."
Sa'fail considered. Then lithely came to his feet.
"We shall do what the outlander wishes. No matter what happens, boredom shall be relieved."
The drom spat at Alex. He ducked and thumped four fingers against the beast's sides. It whuffed air and
wobbled on its feet. The other members of the Mantis team hated droms, the stinking, recalcitrant
transport beast of Saxon. They didn't bother Alex. He'd once been unlucky enough to serve with a
Guard ceremonial attachment on Earth and had encountered camels.
But he didn't regret what was about to happen to this particular drom. The animal belched.
"Ye'll naught be forgettin' yer last meal," he thought, and strolled away from the tethered beast. In
trader's robes, carrying a forged day-pass plate, he'd been shaken down by the security guards
surrounding the prison.
Search aboot as ye will, he thought. It's nae easy to find a bomb when it's digestin' in a beastie's guts.
An' ye no saw the guns in that garbage in the wee cart.
He squatted by the wall and let the last few seconds tick away.
Frick banked closer to Frack. Half-verbal, half-instinct communication, nonwords: Nothing unusual. The
other team members were in place. Prick's prehensile wing finger triggered the transceiver.
"Nothing. Nothing." Flipped the com off and he and his mate banked for the city walls.
If there were any team members to link up with, they'd meet outside. In a few seconds.
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Possibly when the charge goes, the assassin thought. Thought discarded. We will need every gun we
have.
Jorgensen nervously fondled the S-charge looped around his neck. If life signs weren't continuously
picked up by the internal monitors the ensuing blast would leave nothing to ID a Mantis trooper or his
equipment.
One day closer to the farm, Jorgensen thought morosely. That's the only way to look at it. He unrolled
the rug and lifted out the willygun.
"I realize you did this deliberately," Doc purred. "You know the antipathy we of Altair have toward
death."
"Nope," Vinnettsa said. "I didn't. But if I had, it's a clottin' good idea."
Doc sat just in the entrance to a mausoleum, pistol clutched in his fat little paws. Vinnettsa made her final
checks on the launcher and willygun, then let the elastic sling snap the willygun back under her arm.
"Revenge. A typical, unpleasant human trait," Doc said.
"Your people never get even?"
"Of course not. Anthropomorphism. Occasionally we are forced personally to readjust the measure
the your word is fates have made."
Vinnettsa started to answer, and then the first blast whiplashed across the cemetery.
And the two of them were running from the tomb toward the guard quarters that ran inside a tunnel
ahead of them.
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A week before, bribed guardsmen had cemented the charge into the guardshack on the main gates.
The first explosion was minor. Alex had built it up of explosive, a clay shaping and, bedded into the clay,
as many glass marbles as he could buy in the bazaar. Now the marbles cannoned out, quite thoroughly
incapacitating the ten guards lounging around the gates.
Alex had set the charge below waist level. "The more howlin' an' fa'in' an' carrin' on wi' wounded, the
greater they'll be distracted."
Vinnettsa set the range-and-charge fuse on the launcher's handle, brought it up. Aimed. As she counted
ten, she heard the shouting of the officers who were mustering their riot squads to run them down the
tunnel into the prison . . . [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]