6
The three men who stood by a table in the back lobby of the ChildressBarber College and checked off the departure of the men at regularlyspaced intervals were as different in appearance as they were in theirpositions in the Order of the Phoenix.
Oxvane Childress, big and bearded, was the "front," and directed thevery necessary task of administering the Childress Barber College as agenuine barber college. Childress was a prominent member of two of MarsCity's civic and social clubs, and careful examination of his activitiesover a period of years would have thrown no suspicion on him.
The Chief, whose real name perhaps Childress knew but never spoke, was ahuge-headed midget who directed the far-flung activities of the Order ofthe Phoenix as an underground rebel organization. He never left thebuilding, but reports were brought in to him from all over Mars. He knewa great deal at any time about what the government and Marscorp weredoing, and he gave the orders for those moves aimed at maintaining thesecrecy of the Phoenix.
Dark Kensington, tall and pale-eyed, had moved at once into the naturalposition of guiding the experimental work of the organization inextrasensory perception and telekinesis. He was able to add hisknowledge of earlier work to the progress that had been made since hisdisappearance, and co-ordinated the studies in the various dome cities.
A little behind the three stood Fancher Laddigan, doing the actualchecking with a pencil on a list in his hand.
"I think it's all unnecessary," rumbled Childress unhappily. "I watchedthe girl carefully while she was here, and the usual checks were madeinto her background. It's true she had some social contacts with NuwellEli when she first came to Mars, but there's nothing sinister about thatassociation and it seems the last thing a Marscorp agent would doopenly. As far as I could determine, she just realized she'd violated arule and would be discharged for it, so she left before she could bedischarged."
"She hasn't returned to her rooming house," remarked the Chief in hishigh, thin voice.
"Looking for another job, or maybe just on a trip," said Childress."After all, she's a terrestrial tourist. If this is all a false alarm,how am I going to explain suspending operation of the college for aperiod?"
"Remodeling," replied the Chief. "Work out the details and put a sign upas soon as evacuation has progressed far enough."
"It may be unnecessary, Oxvane," said Dark, "but it's best not to takechances. This telepathy is a very uncertain thing, and sometimes it'shard to differentiate true telepathic communication from one's own hopesor fears. But it seemed to me that I had the very definite sense thatMiss Cara Nome was seeking something with hostile intent, and it'sentirely possible that she saw part of one of the experiments throughthat open door."
Two students appeared, gave their names to Fancher in an undertone, andsauntered out the back door of the building.
"What's the status now?" asked the Chief.
"They were nineteen and twenty," answered Fancher precisely. "They'repart of Group C, which is going to Hesperidum. Group A goes to Regina,Group B to Charax, Group D to Nuba and Group E to Ismenius."
"None to Solis?" asked Childress in surprise.
"No, sir, nor to Phoenicis, either," answered Fancher. "They're both sofar, and Solis is a resort, where they might be easier to detect. We'reusing both public transport and private groundcars. All of them so farhave reported safely through the flower shop, except these last two, sothe government evidently hasn't thrown a ring around the building yet."
"And I don't think they will, either," growled Childress. "I tell you,it's all unnecessary."
"Are things going smoothly here?" asked the Chief.
"Yes, sir," replied Fancher. "The last five men scheduled to leave aretaking care of any customers who come in, and the rest of them arepacking supplies into the trucks. As soon as I get word from the flowershop that the last pair has cleared, I give another pair the word toleave."
"It seems to be moving along well," said the Chief, and he turned hisgreen eyes upon Childress. "Is the business office manned?"
"Why--why, there's no one there right now," said Childress, taken aback.
"I think it would look extremely peculiar to any investigator if youweren't there, frantically trying to locate a new secretary," said theChief quietly.
Childress left, in confusion. The Chief turned to Dark.
"I think Fancher's handling this very well without my help," he said."You know where your groundcar is, if we all have to make a run forit?"
"Yes," answered Dark. "We won't be going together?"
"No," replied the Chief, and his lips twisted in a faint smile. "I havemy own method of exit, which should give them other things to thinkabout."
He left, moving with quick, short steps. Dark stayed for a few momentsmore, then he too went back into the building to help with packing.
The Lowland Flower Shop, on the other side of Mars City, near the westairlock, was the clearance point for the evacuees. The flower shop wasoperated by a Phoenix agent, and each pair that left the barber collegepassed through there before leaving the city to let those behind knowthat they had not been stopped by government men. Other Phoenix agentswatched the heliport and bus station for any evidence that thegovernment was trying to block these routes out of Mars City.
The evacuation moved steadily, and it began to appear that Childress wasright. Singly, the first two of the five trucks moved out, and all ofthe ESP instructors and thirty-two of the students had reported backsafe clearance from the flower shop, when....
Dark was moving a stack of charts from one of the classrooms to thebasement when bells all over the building set up a tremendous clangor.Immediately the quiet evacuation dissolved into an uproar, with menrunning and shouting and the bell ringing incessantly.
Dark knew what had happened. Childress, in the front office, had seengovernment agents approaching, or perhaps they had actually entered thebuilding. He had pressed the alarm bell, then sought to delay them withthe righteous indignation suitable to the administrative head of abarber college which is invaded by government officials.
The bells stopped suddenly, and the scattered shouting sounded strangeand thin in the comparative silence. Then the piping voice of the Chiefcame over the loudspeakers spread throughout the building.
"Attention!" said the Chief. "We are temporarily safe. The alarmautomatically sealed all doors to the building behind the frontcorridor.
"Kensington, please come to my office. The rest of you, tie up thecustomers still here and leave them unharmed, and then leave thebuilding by the emergency exits. Scatter, and make your way by whateverprivate transportation methods you can to the rendezvous assigned toyour respective group. Do not use public transportation, becauseMarscorp will undoubtedly be checking public transport now."
Dark set the charts down on the stairs and made his way back to theChief's office. The Chief was sitting, tiny behind his big desk, hisface as serene as ever. He was puffing casually on one of the longHadriacum cigars.
Dark laughed.
"You don't have another of those cigars, do you?" he asked.
For the first time since he had been here, Dark saw the Chief's mouthbreak into a full, broad smile.
"I think so," said the Chief, an undertone of delight bubbling in hisvoice. He reached into the desk and pulled one out. Dark accepted itgravely, and lit it.
"The last two evacuees haven't reported to the flower shop, and they'reoverdue," said the Chief, his face getting serious. "Childress hasn'treported back here by telephone, either, so the Marscorp gang probablyhad already entered the building before he detected them and sounded thealarm."
"What about Childress?" asked Dark. "What will happen to him?"
"He'll take the rap," answered the Chief. "His defense will be that ifthere were any Phoenix activities going on here he didn't know about it.He was just running a barber college in good faith. I don't think theycan prove otherwise."
"Do we have any idea what our situation is?" asked Dark.
; "A very accurate idea. We have observers posted in the two houses at theends of our emergency exits, and they've been reporting to Fancher, inthe next room, by telephone. There's a force of about a hundred MarsCity policemen and plain-clothes agents in the streets all around thebuilding. They saw a squad go into the front, but evidently they didn'thave enough warning to let Childress know in time."
"Will the doors hold?"
The Chief's mouth quirked.
"They'll need demolition equipment to break them down," he said. "Allthese have are heatguns and tear gas. One of the observers fartherdowntown said he saw a tank heading this way, but if they don't alreadyknow there are innocent customers in here, Childress will tell them."
"Then everybody gets away but Childress?"
"We hope. They're not going to ignore these surrounding houses,especially with men drifting out of them and moving away. That's why Iwant to stress the importance of one thing to you, Kensington: you'retoo important for us to lose at this juncture, with your knowledge ofthe original work done. That house at the end of your exit will have adozen or so of our men in it, waiting to drift away one by one, but youcan't afford to worry about them. I want you to get in that groundcar,alone, and take off like Phobos rising."
"You're going out the other emergency exit?"
"That's none of your business. But, as a matter of fact, no. If you wantto see something that will throw consternation into this Marscorpoutfit, watch the roof of this building. Now, get moving, Kensington,and good luck. Fancher and I will be leaving as soon as he gets all therecords packed."
The Chief held out his tiny hand, and Dark shook hands with him. ThenDark left, went down into the basement and entered an underground doorin its eastern wall. He had to crawl through the tunnel driven throughthe sand under the street.
He emerged in the basement of a house across the street, whichostensibly was owned by Manfall Kingron, a retired space engineer. Hewent upstairs.
About half the personnel of the barber college who had not been caughtby the alarm were roaming the rooms of the small house, drifting singlyout the back door at ten-minute intervals.
Dark went to the front window and looked across the street at the barbercollege.
The street was full of men carrying heat pistols, moving restlessly,facing the barber college. Some of them were in police uniform. Squadsof them moved about on the college grounds, and a few were in the yardsof houses on this side of the street.
Dark watched the roof.
As he did so, from its center a helicopter rose into the air, hoveringover the building, moving upward slowly.
So that was the Chief's escape method. He had smuggled a helicopter intothe domed city itself! But how was he to get out of the city in it?
The appearance of the copter threw the men outside into confusedexcitement. They ran about, aiming their short-range heat beams futilelyup at the rising copter.
A military tank, undoubtedly the one the Chief had been told about, spunaround the corner. It stopped, and its guns swung upward toward thecopter. But they remained silent. Heavy heat beams or artillery couldpuncture the city's protecting dome.
The copter went straight up, gathering speed. Up, and up, and it did notstop!
It hit the plastic dome near its zenith. It tilted and staggered. Itripped through the dome and vanished.
Immediately, sirens began to wail throughout the city. Doors clangedshut automatically everywhere. Lights and warning signs flashed at everystreet corner, advising citizens to run for the nearest airtightshelter.
The dome was punctured!
Emergency crews would be up within minutes to repair the break, and verylittle of the city's air would hiss away. But, in the meantime, everyactivity in Mars City was snarled by the necessity to seek shelter. TheChief had, indeed, created a situation of consternation in which itwould be easier for the Phoenix men to elude their enemies.
The armed men of the government forces were already running for thehouses in this area. Some of them were headed for the house from whichDark watched.
The Phoenix men were donning marsuits. They would admit the refugees,after requiring them to lay down their arms, and then leave the house intheir marsuits.
Dark grinned happily, and walked quickly through the house to theattached garage. He climbed into the groundcar, started the engine, andopened the garage door by the remote control mechanism on the dashboard.
Accelerating at full power, Dark drove the groundcar out of the garageand spun into the street. The men afoot, seeking entrance to the houses,paid no attention. The tank began to turn ponderously in his direction,but by the time it was in a position to bring its guns to bear, Dark'sgroundcar had reached the corner and raced around it into the broadthoroughfare leading to Mars City's east airlock.
The airlock was only a dozen blocks away. The Chief's theory had beenthat the government, depending on surprise in its move to surround theChildress Barber College, would not attempt the complicated task ofchecking all traffic passing through the airlock until it was realizedthat some of the Phoenix men had escaped from the trap at the college.
Dark reached the airlock in minutes. The Chief's theory proved correct.There were no police at the airlock, and the maintenance employeestationed there did not even look up as Dark's approach activated theinner door.
He drove the groundcar into the airlock. The inner door closed behindhim. The outer door opened, and Dark drove out onto the highway thatstruck straight across the Syrtis Major Lowland toward the Aeria Desertand Edom. It was as simple as that.
About ten miles out was the circular bypass highway that surrounded MarsCity, and Dark proposed to turn right on that, for his destination wasHesperidum. The highway he was on would take him eastward, andHesperidum was about 8,000 kilometers southwest of Mars City--a littlebetter than two-days' drive at groundcar speed on the straight, flathighways.
Dark reached over and set the groundcar's radio dial on the frequencywhich had been agreed on for emergency Phoenix broadcasts during thisoperation. If government monitors caught the broadcasts and jammed them,there were alternate channels chosen. With only about two dozen radiostations on all Mars, plus the official aircraft and groundcar band,there was plenty of free room in the air.
There was nothing on the Phoenix frequency now but a little disconsolatestatic.
The country through which he drove here was uninhabited lowland. Thehuman life on Mars, agricultural, industrial and commercial, wasconcentrated under the domes of the cities. Except for a few tinyindividual domes at the edge of Mars City, there were no humanstructures close to it except the airport and the spaceport, and thesewere west and north of the city, respectively.
The highway struck straight and lonely through a faintly rippling sea ofgray-green canal sage, spotted occasionally with the tall trunk of acanal cactus, rising above it. Later he would see infrequent dome farms,but he could expect no more than two or three score of these in theentire long drive to Hesperidum.
Dark slowed and entered the cloverleaf that took him onto the bypassexpressway. Even as he did so, the radio crackled and the thin voice ofthe Chief sounded over the groundcar loudspeaker.
"Attention, Phoenix," said the Chief intensely. "Attention, Phoenix.Emergency instructions. We have monitored reports that the government ischecking airlocks at all cities. Repeat: the government is checkingairlocks at all cities.
"Some Phoenix have been captured attempting to leave Mars City.Instructions: those in Mars City do not attempt to leave but findshelter with Phoenix friends. Those beyond dome without credentials, goto assigned emergency rendezvous spots _outside_ dome cities. Repeatinstructions: those...."
Swearing under his breath, Dark pulled the groundcar to a stop besidethe highway. It was so simple! They should have foreseen that thegovernment would take such a step as soon as it was realized that thePhoenix men were leaving Mars City. He himself evidently had gottenthrough the airlock just in time.
But he had been assigned no outside rende
zvous! Whether it was anoversight or not, he did not know, but the only place he had beeninstructed to go was Hesperidum. The only Phoenix contact he knew wasthe South Ausonia Art Shop in Hesperidum; and now he could not enter thecity without being captured.
He had only one alternative: the Martians, in the Icaria Desert, halfwayaround Mars. They would remember him and shelter him, and he was sure hecould find the spot.
He looked at his fuel gauge. The tank was full. It would not take himquite there, but he could chance refueling at Solis Lacus, some 20,000kilometers from Mars City. He could take the highway, turning out intothe desert to go around Edom, Aram and Ophir.
He put the groundcar in drive again, and made a U-turn in the highway.He entered the cloverleaf and was halfway through it when he saw thecopter.
It was a red-and-white government copter, and it was descending at ashallow angle toward him from the direction of Mars City. Dark switchedhis radio to the official channel.
" ... await check. Repeat: groundcar in cloverleaf, stop at once andawait check."
Dark braked the groundcar to a stop. As soon as the copter grounded, hecould accelerate and escape.
But the copter did not ground. It hovered, directly over him. Then Darkrealized it was awaiting a patrol car from Mars City to check and takehim in custody if necessary.
Immediately, he put the groundcar in drive and whipped out of thecloverleaf under full acceleration. If he could only achieve top speed,350 kilometers-an-hour, the copter couldn't match it.
But the copter was on his tail at once as he swerved out of the tightcurve. Its guns spat fire.
There was a terrific impact, and the groundcar dome shattered above him.Unprotected, he felt the air explode from the groundcar, from hislungs. Oxygenless death poured in through the broken dome.
It all happened in an instant. Even as the dome shattered under thecopter's shell and Dark recognized the imminence of death, the groundcartwisted out of control and careened from the highway. He felt itspinning over and over, and then blackness closed in around him.