agreed.
Short scribbled on a form, handed it to Duggan.
"Take this down to Ted Rusche, he's the short, dark fellow bossing therock hogs. He'll see you're issued your tools."
Duggan nodded and turned away.
* * * * *
In the super mech hostel, on the 79th Level, Duggan shared a compartmentof six sleeping and mentrol plates. All of the others were rockhounds,and three of them worked in his own clean-up gang. His immediate pusher,Ted Rusche, was a legless, dark and hairy man, much like his workingsuper mech. Waide and Myham, the first tall and once-handsome, and thelatter, bony and scarred, were both paralytics.
Duggan's share of the attendants' salary amounted to another fiftydollars monthly. He was not growing too wealthy!
"And how do you like it after three weeks, Al?" Rusche demanded fromwhere he balanced on the cushioned sleeping plate.
Duggan stretched cramped limbs and turned his sightless face towardRusche's voice.
"Seems good to be working again, Ted," he said.
"This's your last day with us, Al. Orders from Short. He's transferringyou. Office work I guess, or maybe he's making you a foreman."
Rusche's voice was curious.
"He musta found out something about you, Al. S'funny but you look awfulfamiliar to me too. And you know more about tunnels than you let on. Howabout leveling with a guy?"
"Not now." Duggan was thinking of the other listening men. "After we'vecleaned-up and eaten. See you in the park outside the hostel."
"Right."
Duggan's thoughts were muddled. Fingerprints probably; at every supermech hostel all guests were printed and taped, and possibly through hissimilar name. Short must have been suspicious from the first. And if hehad come to the hostel to see Duggan's mentrol-hooded face, while Dugganworked, his identification must have been sure.
Short knew that he was Merle Duggan, and before too long Janith, and allhis friends--if he had any left now--would know he had been in hidinghere.
He hurried to eat and get ready for another period under the mentrol'shooded probes.
Less than half an hour later he strode out of the hostel, his super mechgleaming and clean and his jacket and shorts newly pressed. He metRusche in the park and they headed for the lift to the upper level.
En route to the 10th Level he explained.
"I thought you looked like somebody I should know." Rusche scrubbed athis pseudo beard's coarseness. "Accident left you sort of psychoed, huh?So you was scared of the levels? Had to try coming back with a falsename?"
Duggan gulped. It made a believable sort of yarn. He hadn't taken timeto concoct a story.... Why not?
"Something like that. I guess I was badly shook, Ted."
"So now you go back to being engineer at a thousand or so, and I'm stilla rock hog." Rusche shrugged. "Less headaches anyhow."
They stepped off the lift at the 10th Level and took the high speedstrip toward the business section. Duggan had it in his mind to seeJanith and tell her she had failed--that he was his own man again. Shewould be at the office. He would tell her off, and leave. And then he'dshow Rusche some of the high spots of the low-number levels ofAppalachia.
The darkness came about them swiftly. To Duggan it was like a return tothe nightmare of sightlessness. Under their feet the racing stripfaltered and stalled. They were thrown off their feet and sprawled onthe fiber-ribbed squares of the checkerboarded way's surface.
"What is it?" demanded Rusche.
He fought back the panic. This was not true blindness.
"Criminals. They set off a few dozen 'midnight' bombs and try to robbanks or stores. We get these attacks quite often."
"Last long?"
"Emergency ventilation will clear it out in a couple of minutes. And theSquads will have them in half an hour. They never get very far."
They sat close together, to wait. From the walkways and stalled stripsshrieks and frightened cries sounded. The sounds seemed to increase frombehind them.
"This's my first time above the Twentieth Level," Rusche confided."Thirty-five years and I never saw the Outside. I don't think I like itup this high."
"It will be over in a little while, Ted. Probably just a group ofteen-agers looking for thrills." He laughed drily. "They'll end up withblanked memories and new faces like those who tried before them."
"Listen," muttered Rusche.
In the lightlessness, and above the wailing of the terrified peopleabout them, they could hear the scuff of running feet. They were comingcloser at a swift pace. In a moment the runners would collide with them!
* * * * *
Duggan's years of blindness had given him the ability to judge and gaugedistance from sound. At the proper instant he pounced, his handsclamping around a body, and a second body crashed into the leader. Theywent down in a tangle.
He heard Rusche shouting and fists battering and the tinkle of metal orcrystal on metal. He was fighting desperately, his super mech's strengthovertaxed. The unseen man's hands tore at his neck and shoulder, rippingaway the synthetic flesh and baring the complex framework beneath.
Then his hand caught an arm and he exerted the full strength of his mechpower, until now carefully subdued. The entire arm tore away from itsshoulder. And yet the wounded man continued to attack.
It was only then that he realized this must be a super mech. Thecriminals must have stolen one or two super mechs and were using them inthis robbery.
He was ruthless, then. He wrenched away the other arm. He battered atthe unseen torso. The feet of the desperate mech smashed at his kneesand thighs, staggering him. Then he bore the armless torso of the mechbackward and fell upon it.
The mech went limp, its mentrols blanked by the distant criminal whocontrolled it.
Duggan came to his feet, listening for the sound of battle betweenRusche and his captive. It came from his right, faintly. About ten feetdistant, he judged it. And now the emergency vents were clearing thedarkness from the travel strips. Twilight faded and vision replaced it.
Rusche was sitting astride a prone body, and even as Duggan reached hisside the struggling criminal's arms and legs went limp. Rusche gruntedand started to stand.
"A super mech!" he said. He rubbed thoughtfully at his disarranged noseand cheeks, smoothing them again into their normal contours. "What aboutyours?"
"The same."
"Here's their loot, anyhow," Rusche said, holding up a small grayplastine bag.
"Drop it, Ted. We better fade out of here before the Squads arrive, too.They might think we're--"
"Not on your life, Al. We should get a reward. Pics on the newswires andtapes."
Duggan shrugged and smoothed at his own neck and face. Fourred-uniformed men, their heads hidden by ovoid gas helmets, came hissingtoward them along the travel strip. They rode single-wheeled cycles andtheir rapid-fire expoders were trained on them.
"Careful now, Ted. Let me do the talking. They like to use paralysisneedles and question later."
"But--"
"I've lived up here."
The unicycles braked to a halt.
"Step over here, slow," ordered one of the Squadmen.
Duggan obeyed, careful to keep his arms rigid. Of course paralysisneedles would cause this mech body no damage, but why make trouble? They_had_ more destructive weapons.
"Ran into us," he said mildly. "We figured something wrong--honest menwould be standing where they were. We stopped them."
The four members of the Squad were inspecting the damage.
"I guess you did," one of them said, admiringly. "You must be supermechs too?"
"That's right. I'm Duggan, Al--Merle Duggan, and this is my friend, TedRusche. We work on the 80th Level--rockhounds."
"Duggan?" The man's voice was suddenly strained. "Maybe you're not soclear as you pretend. A woman got in the way by accident, supposedly, oftheir getaway from the bank. Her name was Duggan too."
Duggan started forwar
d, remembered the ugly expoder muzzles and backedaway.
"Was her name Janith?" he demanded.
"Radio report didn't say. Contact them, Joe," he told one of the otherfaceless men.
"Couldn't be you hired these two to kill her and pretend the robbery?"he inquired.
"Of course not."
One of the Squad mumbled something. Duggan's interrogator dropped hisweapon's muzzle.
"Woman twisted her ankle trying to get out of the way, and fell.Received a cut on her temple and is being taken to the hospital.Accidental all right."
"But her name."
"Janith."
Duggan felt a strange mingling of anger and of