The howling of the 'copter propeller overhead effectivelyblocked out any sounds that might be coming from the building, atleast until the ambulance landed. Then a spatter of firing from belowwas audible.
Cardon, the medic and the guards piled out, the latter with thestretcher. The orderly-driver got out his tablet pistol and checkedthe chamber, then settled into a posture of watchful relaxation. MajorSlater was waiting for them by one of the vertical lift platforms.
"I tried to get hold of you, but that blasted meeting was going on,and they had the doors sealed, and--" he began.
Cardon hushed him quickly. "Around here, I'm an Illiterate," hewarned. "Where's Pelton? We've got to get him and his daughter out ofhere, at once."
"He's still flat on his back, out cold," Slater said. "The medic yousent around here gave him a shot of hypnotaine: he'll be out for acouple of hours, yet. Prestonby's still here. He's commanding thedefense; doing a good job, too."
That was good. Ralph would help get Claire to Literates' Hall, afterthey'd gotten her father to safety.
"There must be about five hundred Independent-Conservative stormtroopers in the store," Slater was saying. "Most of them got hereafter we did. The city cops have all the street approaches roped off;they're letting nobody but Grant Hamilton's thugs in."
"They were fairly friendly this morning," Cardon said. "Mayor Jamesonmust have passed the word." They all got off the lift two floors down,where they found Claire Pelton and Ralph Prestonby waiting. "Hello,Ralph. Claire. What's the situation?"
"We have all the twelfth floor," Prestonby said. "We have about halfthe eleventh, including the north and west public stages. We have thebasement and the storerooms and the warehouse--Sergeant Coccozello'sdown there, with as many of the store police and Literates andLiterates' guards and store-help as he could salvage, and thewarehouse gang. They've taken most of the ground floor, the mainmezzanine, and parts of the second floor. We moved two of the 7-mmmachine guns down from the top, and we control the front streetentrance with them and a couple of sono guns. The store's isolatedfrom the outside by the city police, who are allowing re-enforcementsto come through for the raiders, but we're managing to stop them atthe doors."
"Have you called Radical-Socialist headquarters for help?"
"Yes, half a dozen times. There's some fellow named Yingling there,who says that all their storm troops are over in North Jersey, on somekind of a false-alarm riot-call, and can't be contacted."
"So?" Cardon commented gently. "That's too bad, now." Too bad forHorace Yingling and Joe West; this time tomorrow, they'll be a pair ofdead traitors, he thought. "Well, we'll have to make do with what wehave. Where's Russ Latterman, by the way?"
Prestonby gave a sidewise glance toward Claire and shook his head, hislips pressed tightly together. _She doesn't know, yet_, Cardoninterpreted.
"Down in the basement, with Coccozello," Prestonby said, aloud. "We'rein telephone communication with Coccozello, and have a freightelevator running between here and the basement. Coccozello saysLatterman is using a rifle against the raiders, killing every one hecan get a shot at."
Cardon nodded. Probably vindictive about being involved in actioninjurious to Pelton's commercial interests; just another odd quirk ofLiterate ethics.
"We'd better get him up here," he said. "You and I have got to leave,at once; we have to get Pelton and Claire to safety. He can help MajorSlater till we can get back with re-enforcements. I am going to kill aman named Horace Yingling, and then I'm going to round up the stormtroops he diverted on a wild-goose chase to North Jersey." He noddedto the medic and the four plain-clothes guards. "Get Pelton on thestretcher. Better use the canvas flaps and the straps. He's underhypnotaine, but it's likely to be a rough trip. Claire, get anythingyou want to take with you. Ralph will take you where you'll be safefor a while."
"But the store--" Claire began.
"Your father has riot-insurance, doesn't he? I know he does; theydoubled the premium on him when he came out for Senate. Let theinsurance company worry about the store."
The medic and the guards moved into Chester Pelton's private rest roomwith the stretcher. Claire went to the desk and began picking up oddsand ends, including the pistol Cardon had given her, and putting themin her handbag.
"We've got to keep her away from her father, for a few days, Ralph,"he told Prestonby softly. "It's all over town that she can read andwrite. We've got to give him a chance to cool off before he sees heragain. Take her to Lancedale. I have everything fixed up; she'll beadmitted to the Fraternities this afternoon, and given Literateprotection."
Prestonby grabbed his hand impulsively. "Frank! I'll never be able torepay you for this, not if I live to be a thousand--" he began.
There was a sudden blast of sound from overhead--the banging ofmachine guns, the bark of the store's 20-mm auto-cannon, the howlingof airplane jets, and the crash of explosions. Everybody in the roomjerked up and stood frozen, then Prestonby jumped for the TV-screenand pawed at the dials. A moment later, after the screen flashed andwent black twice, they were looking across the topside landing stagefrom a pickup at one corner.
A slim fighter-bomber, with square-tipped, backswept, wings, wasjetting up in almost perpendicular flight; another was coming intoward the landing stage, and, as they watched, a flight of rocketsleaped forward from under its wings. Cardon saw the orderly-driver ofthe ambulance jump down and start to run for the open lift-shaft. Hegot five steps away from his vehicle. Then the rockets came in, andone of them struck the tarpaulin-covered pile of boxes beside theambulance. There was a flash of multicolored flame, in which the manand the vehicle he had left both vanished. Immediately, the screenwent black.
The fireworks had mostly exploded at the first blast; however, whenCardon and Major Slater and one or two others reached the top landingstage, there were still explosions. A thing the size and shape of atwo-gallon kettle, covered with red paper, came rolling toward them,and suddenly let go with a blue-green flash, throwing a column ofsmoke, in miniature imitation of an A-bomb, into the air. Somethingabout three feet long came whizzing at them on the end of a tail offire, causing them to fling themselves flat; involuntarily, Cardon'shead jerked about and his eyes followed it until it blew up with aflash and a bang three blocks uptown. Here and there, colored fireflared, small rockets flew about, and firecrackers popped.
The ambulance was gone, blown clear off the roof. The other 'copterson the landing stage were a tangled mass of wreckage. The 20-mm wastoppled over; the gunner was dead, and one of the crew, half-dazed,was trying to drag a third man from under the overturned gun. Thecontrol tower, with the two 12-mm machine guns, was wrecked. The two7-mm's that had been left on the top had vanished, along with themachine gunners, in a hole that had been blown in the landing stage.
Cardon, Slater, and the others dashed forward and pulled theauto-cannon off the injured man, hauling him and his companion over tothe lift. The two rakish-winged fighter-bombers were returning,spraying the roof with machine-gun bullets, and behind them came aprocession of fifteen big 'copters. They dropped the lift hastily;Slater jumped off when it was still six feet above the floor, andbegan shouting orders.
"Falk: take ten men and get to the head of this lift-shaft! Burdick,Levine: get as many men as you can in thirty seconds, and get up tothe head of the escalator! Diaz: go down and tell Sternberg to bringall his gang up here!"
Cardon caught up a rifle and rummaged for a bandolier of ammunition,losing about a minute in the search. The delay was fortunate; when hegot to the escalators, he was met by a rush of men hurrying down theascending spiral or jumping over onto the descending one.
"Sono guns!" one of them was shouting. "They have the escalator headcovered; you'll get knocked out before you get off the spiral!"
He turned and looked toward the freight lift. It was coming down again,with Falk and his men unconscious on it, knocked senseless by bludgeonsof inaudible sound, and a half a dozen of the 'copter-borne raiders, allwearing the white robes and hoods of the Independent
-Conservative stormtroops. He swung his rifle up and began squeezing the trigger,remembering to first make sure that the fire-control lever was setforward for semiauto, and remembering his advice to Goodkin, thatmorning. By the time the platform had stopped, all the men in whiterobes were either dead or wounded, and none of the unconsciousLiterates' guards along with them had been injured. The medic who hadcome with Cardon, assisted by a couple of the office force, got thecasualties sorted out. There was nothing that could be done about themen who had been sono-stunned; in half an hour or so, they would recoverconsciousness with no