the entertainment machines went dark.Hunter heard the shrill screaming of the trapped crowd. He knew thatit would bring the police running, but he also knew they would havearrived shortly in any case. The important thing was that theelectronic watchdogs on the wall were now lifeless.
Hunter blasted open the gate, and took the path that led east.
The Von Rausch castle--and the word was scarcely a metaphor--wassomething lifted bodily out of a Tri-D historical romance, completewith porticos, battlements, stone-walled towers and an imitation moatwhere mechanical swans floated on the dark water.
He crossed the moat on a rustic footbridge of plastic cleverlyfabricated to seem like crudely hewn wood. Through a high, narrowwindow he saw a pale flicker of light. The pane was thick with grime.
Hunter could distinguish nothing in the room except a thin, elderlywoman who seemed to be moving around a table where six candles burnedin a silver candelabrum.
He kicked open the window. The woman looked at him, neither frightenednor alarmed. She was wearing an odd black dress, long-sleeved,high-necked, with a hemline that touched the floor. Her face was paleand wrinkled, unrelieved by any sort of cosmetic.
She held out her fragile hands. "You did come, Karl! I knew youwouldn't disappoint Auntie."
Hunter cried through clenched teeth, "I want Werner von Rausch. Whereis he?"
"Goodness, dear, how should I know? Werner never comes to my parties."
Hunter noticed the table, then, set for eight, its gleaming silver andgold-rimmed china glowing in the soft candle light.
"Your Cousin Charlotte's already here, Karl." The woman gesturedgracefully toward the table. "And little Helmig. They know howimportant it is to come on time."
He felt horror--and unconscious pity--as he realized the truth. Yet hetried once more to get from her the information he wanted.
"Oh, bother with Werner," she answered, pouting. "If you must know, Ididn't even invite him. He's such a bore among young people."
She saw the blaster in Hunter's hand and pushed it aside gently, witha grimace of disapproval. "I don't like you to have these toys, Karl.Next thing, you'll be wanting to join the army."
Hunter flung himself out of that room, into a dark and musty hall.Behind him he heard the woman still talking, as if he had never lefther. He blundered from one bleak room to another, rooms that were liketombs smelling of dust and decay.
On the second floor he came upon a small, balding man who sat readingat a desk in a room crammed with tottering stacks of old books. Thelight came from an antiquated electric lamp. Obviously the house hadits own generating plant, independent of the power center Hunter haddestroyed.
Hunter jerked up his blaster again. "Werner von Rausch?"
"One moment," the man said. Ignoring Hunter, the man quietly finishedwhat he was reading, slipped a leather placemark into the book, andput it on top of a stack beside the desk. The pile promptly collapsedin a cloud of dust at Hunter's feet.
Max saw some of the title pages. The books were extraordinarily old,some of them with a printing date a thousand years in the past. Theman pinched a pair of eye-glasses on his nose and studied Huntercarefully.
"You're from the police, I presume?" he asked.
"If you are Werner von Rausch--"
"I'm Heinrich. I sent in the report. Though, I must say, you couldn'thave come at a more inconvenient time. I'm collating the spellstonight. I have them all, right here at my fingertips. And when I'mfinished--" He seized the captain's jacket and his voice was suddenlyshrill. "--I'll have the power to summon up any demon from hell. Thinkwhat that means! I'll be greater than Faust. I'll have more powerthan--"
"Where can I find Werner von Rausch?"
"Yes, Werner. Poor boy." Heinrich was calm again. "You'll have to doyour duty, officer. He's been annoying me all afternoon. So muchnoise--a man can't think. He's in his shop at the end of the hall. Butdon't be too severe with him. Perhaps this time just a warning willmake him see reason."
Hunter went back to the corridor, feeling again the shadow of horrorat this sick distortion of reality. In the distance, beyond the metalfence, he heard the scream of sirens, and realized he had at bestanother three minutes before the police would be there. Three minutesto make a deal with Werner and save Ann.
Hunter pushed back the nightmare that welled up from the depths of hismind. It wasn't true; it couldn't be true. If it were, nothing in thejungle made sense.
VIII
As he felt his way along the hall, he passed the cage of a lift, aprivate transit between the house and the cartel offices on the citylevels below. He noted it subconsciously, as a possible means ofescape. But he was through running. He could make a deal with VonRausch. After that the police wouldn't matter.
At the end of the corridor he came upon a paneled door. Behind it hecould hear the hum of a motor, and knew that he had found Werner'sshop, and the source of the noise that had disturbed Heinrich'sresearch.
Hunter flung open the door. The light was bright and gay. On thefloor, a fat old man sat hunched over the remote control console of atoy monorail system. Toy space liners and fighting ships buzzed in theair.
"Werner von Rausch?" Hunter whispered.
"You've come to play with me!" The fat, old man flashed the cherubicsmile of a child. "And you brought me a blaster. Oh, let me see it!Let me see it!"
He clapped his hands eagerly.
Hunter turned and fled. The scream of the sirens still seemed nocloser, but without assessing his chances Hunter sprang into theprivate lift. It dropped downward toward its unknown destination. Whatthat was, Hunter didn't care. Anything to escape from so hideous amadhouse.
The Von Rausch clan: an old lady who lived with ghosts; a scholar ofdemonology; a patriarch lost in an eternal childhood. All of themrunning away into their own private fantasies.
But this Was the family which ruled a cartel and directed the conquestof half the galaxy; these were the most powerful human beings who hadever lived. And they were escaping into insanity. Escaping what?Responsibility? The jungle of the cartels?
"Two alternatives," Dawn had said. "Pull down the world or run awayfrom it." The Von Rausches had made this mess and then fled in horrorfrom their own brutal and destructive creation.
The lift cage jerked to a stop. The door opened on a warmly lightedexecutive office where a white-haired man sat at a desk which had beencut from a single slab of Venusian crystal. A much enlarged projectionof the United Researchers' emblem glowed from the Wall. Hunter raisedhis weapon.
The old man gestured imperiously. "Don't be a fool, Captain. Iwouldn't be here unless I had adequate protection. There are blastersin the wall, which I can trigger with a single spoken word."
"You want to finish the job your men bungled this afternoon?"
"Not our men, Captain. We got in on this deal a little late. We knewnothing about this psychiatric patent until the strikes startedtoday."
"But Ann Saymer--"
"Unfortunately, we do not have her. It's Consolidated. We sent our menout to bring you in, Captain. We wanted your help. When you got away,it didn't occur to me that you would go to the top level. Not until weheard the report of the destruction of the power distributor. It waseasy enough to anticipate your moves after that.
"If you hadn't used the private Von Rausch lift, you would have goneout again through the gate, where my men were waiting. Naturally wecouldn't send them inside. You can understand why, of course."
Hunter heard only vaguely what the man was saying, for abruptly thepattern fell into place. Neither Consolidated nor United had Ann orthe Exorciser. Each cartel suspected the other because they hadn't yetadjusted to the idea that a third cartel existed: Eric Young's union.
Ann's micropic had told the literal truth. She had taken hercommission-job with the biggest private clinic, operated by theU.F.W. It was a dead giveaway when Young struck both cartelssimultaneously, if Hunter had read the data correctly.
Hunter moved toward the crystal desk. "I know where Ann is,
sir," hesaid. "I can--"
"You can stay where you are," the old man interrupted. "One hour ago,my friend, I was ready to offer you a deal. Since then you've seen--"He raised his eyes toward the ceiling. "You've seen what's up there.Only four of us know that secret. We don't relish sharing it with afifth."
"Unless you destroy Ann's patent, you're finished anyway."
"Destroy, Captain?" The senile voice turned silky. "No, we want thatmachine intact."
"If you'll guarantee Ann's safety and mine--"
"You have an exaggerated idea of your own importance. You would havebeen useful to us, particularly since you