to the nest of the Nipe.
Overhead was Government City.
He had walked those streets only the night before, and he knew that only ashort distance above him was an entirely different world.
Somewhere up there, his brother was waiting after having run the gamut oftelevised interviews, dinner at one of the best restaurants, and a partyafterward. A celebrity. "The greatest detective in the Solar System,"they'd called him. Fine stuff, that. Stanton wondered what the asteroidswere like. Maybe that would be the place to go after this job was done.Maybe they'd have a place in the asteroids for a hopped-up superman.
Or maybe there'd only be a place here, beneath the streets of GovernmentCity for a dead superman.
_Not if I can help it,_ Stanton thought with a grim smile.
* * * * *
The walking seemed to take forever, but, somehow, Stanton didn't mind it.He had a lot to think over. Seeing his brother had been unnervingyesterday, but today he felt as though everything had been all right allalong.
His memory still was a long way from being complete, and it probablyalways would be. He could still scarcely recall any real memories of a boynamed Martin Stanton, but--and he smiled at the thought--he knew moreabout him than his brother did, at that.
It didn't matter. That Martin Stanton was gone. In effect, he had beendemolished--what little there had been of him--and a new structure hadbeen built on the old foundation.
And yet, in another way, the new structure was very like what would havedeveloped naturally if the accident so early in life had not occurred.
Stanton skirted a pile of rubble on his right. There had been a stationhere, once; the street above had caved in and filled in with brick,concrete, cobblestones, and steel scrap, and then it had been sealed overwhen Government City was built.
A part of one wall was still unbroken, though. A sign built of tile said_86th Street_, he knew, although it wasn't visible in the dim glow. Hekept walking, ignoring the rats that scampered over the rubble.
"Barhop to Barbell," said the soft voice near his ear. "No sign ofactivity from the Nipe. So far, you haven't triggered any of his alarms."
"Barbell to Barhop," Stanton whispered. "What's he doing?"
"Still sitting motionless. Thinking, I guess. Or sleeping. It's hard totell."
"Let me know if he starts moving around."
"Will do."
_Poor, unsuspecting beastie,_ Stanton thought. _Ten years of hard work,ten years of feeling secure, and within a very short time he's going toget the shock of his life._
Or maybe not. There was no way of knowing what kind of shocks the Nipe hadtaken in his life, Stanton thought. Not even of knowing whether the Nipewas capable of feeling anything like security.
It was odd, he thought, that he should feel a kinship toward both the Nipeand his brother in such similar ways. He had never met the Nipe, and hisbrother was a dim picture in his old memories, but they were both verywell known to him. Certainly better known to him than he was to them.
And yet, seeing his brother's face on the TV screen, hearing him talk,watching the way he moved about, watching the expressions on his face, hadbeen a tremendously moving thing. Not until that moment had he reallyknown himself.
Meeting him face to face would be easier now, but it would still be ascene highly charged with emotional tension.
He kicked something that rattled and rolled away from him. He stopped,freezing in his tracks, trying to pierce the dully glowing gloom. It was ahuman skull.
He relaxed and began walking again.
There were plenty of bones down here. Mannheim had said that the tunnelshad been used as air-raid shelters when the sun bomb had hit the islandduring the Holocaust. Thousands had crowded underground after the warninghad come, and they had died when the bright, hot, deadly gas had roareddown through ventilators and open stairwells.
There were even caches of canned goods down here, some of them stillsealed after all this time. But the rats, wiser than they knew, had chewedat them, exposing the steel beneath the tin plate. After a while,oxidation would weaken a can to the point where some lucky rat could bitethrough it and find himself a meal. Then he could move the empty can asideand gnaw the next one in the pile, and the cycle would begin again. Itkept the rats fed almost as well as an automatic machine might have.
* * * * *
The tunnel was an endless monochromatic world that was both artificial andnatural. Here, there was a neatly squared-off mosaic of ceramic tile; overthere, on a little hillock of earth, squatted a colony of fat mushrooms.In one place, he had to skirt a pool of water; in another, climb over aheap of rust and debris that had once been a subway car.
One man, alone, walking through the dark towards a superhuman monster thathad terrorized Earth for a decade.
A drug that would knock out the Nipe would have been useful, but thatwould have required a greater knowledge of the Nipe's biochemistry thananyone had. The same applied to anesthetic gases, or electric shock, orsupersonics.
The only answer was a man called Stanton.
And the voice near his ear said: "A hundred yards to go, Barbell."
"I know," he whispered. "He hasn't moved?"
"No."
_Wouldn't it be funny if he were dead?_ Stanton thought. _If his heart hadstopped, or something. Wouldn't that be a big joke on everybody?Especially me._
Ahead the tunnel made a curving turn, and there was a large area that hadonce been a major junction of two tunnels, one below the other. The Nipehad taken over a part of that area to build his home-away-from-home.
Stanton approached the turn and took off the infra-red goggles. Enoughlight spilled over from the Nipe's lair to illuminate the tunnel. He putthe goggles on the trackway. He wouldn't need them again.
He went on around the curve, slowly and quietly. He didn't want to fightdown here in the tracks, and he didn't want to be caught just yet.
Cautiously, he lifted himself up to the platform, where long-gonepassengers had once waited for long-gone trains. Now that he was out ofthe trench that the tracks lay in, he could move more easily. He movedaway from the tracks.
"Barbell! He's heard you! Watch it!"
But Stanton had already heard the movement of the Nipe. He jerked off thecommunicator and threw it away. He didn't want any encumbrances now.
And then, as fast as any express train that had ever moved in theseunderground ways, the Nipe came around a corner thirty feet away, his fourviolet eyes gleaming, his limbs rippling beneath his centipede-like body.
_From fifteen feet away, he launched himself through the air, hisoutstretched hands ready to kill._
But Stanton's marvelous neuro-muscular system was already in action.
At this stage of the game, it would be suicide to let the Nipe get close.He couldn't fend off eight grasping hands with his own two. He leaped toone side, and the Nipe got his first surprise in ten years when Stanton'sfist slammed against the side of his snouted head, knocking him in theopposite direction from that in which Stanton had moved.
The Nipe landed, turned, and charged back toward the man. This time, hereared up, using his two rear pairs of limbs for locomotion, while the twoforward pair were held out, ready to kill.
He got surprise number two when Stanton's fist landed on his snout,rocking his head back. His own hands met nothing but air, and by the timehe had recovered from the blow, Stanton was well back, out of the way.
_He's so small!_ Stanton thought wonderingly. Even when he reared up, theNipe's head was only three feet above the concrete floor.
The Nipe came in again--more cautiously, this time.
Stanton punched again with a straight right. The Nipe moved his headaside, and Stanton's knuckles merely grazed the side of his head, belowthe lower right eye. One of the Nipe's hands came in in a chopping righthook that took Stanton just below the ribs. Stanton leaped back with agasp of pain.
The Nipe didn't use fists. He used his open h
and, fingers together, like ajudo fighter.
The Nipe came forward once more, and as Stanton danced back, the Nipe madea grab for his ankle, almost catching it.
There were too many hands to watch! Stanton had two advantages: weight andreach. His arms were almost half again as long as the Nipe's.
Against that, the Nipe had all those hands; and with his low center ofgravity and four-footed stance, it would be hard to knock him down. IfStanton lost his footing, the fight would be over fast.
Stanton lunged suddenly forward and planted a left in the Nipe's rightupper eye, then followed it with a right uppercut to the Nipe's jaw as hishead snapped back. The Nipe's four hands cut inward from the sides likesword blades, but they found no target.
Backing away, Stanton suddenly realized that he had another advantage. TheNipe couldn't throw a straight jab! His shoulder--if that's what theyshould be called--were