Chapter EIGHT
Clearing the outer door, Zolan leaned against thebuffer, tightened his bootstrap with one glovedhand, the other pressed against the wall to steadyhimself. Seconds later, he pulled away, shook hisleg to settle the boot for comfort, and caught upwith Brad.
Grasping Brad's elbow activated the secure to-suitcircuit. Myra, Hodak, Adari and Kumiko crowdedin close and energized a camouflaging mix ofartificial jive and loud laughs on the nature ofthe terrain, the location of the Transit Strip, thetank town's appearance in the distance, whateverserved as a barrier to electronic penetration.
"The clerk passed the word about us," Zolan said."Gave full descriptions and said to notify someonecalled 'Scarf'. By the way, he did a lot more thancheck our weapons while we stood at the counter.We were scanned down to our bones. He's sendingthe file to his control, including the main portal'slock combination on the Raven. He'll have a lifterready for someone who's to arrive soon. Lookslike they're going to search the ship."
"Fine," Brad nodded. "Nothing there to causeus a problem. Pass the word as we move along.No changes in plans until some contacts develop.Then we'll regroup and go on from there."
Boarding a robo-taxi that had just dischargedsuited figures at a nearby mooring tower, theSentinels lined up along the taxi's portal. Zolanconsulted a placard on the instrument panel andpunched in the coordinates for Air Lock 22. Asthe flitter rose and headed toward the dome Bradthought back as he weighed their chances.
The processes of intense physical training andweapons drills, the concentrated telepathic loadingof Plutonian political history and its government'sdespotic apparatus had been cleared from theirconsciousness; the substance remained. Nor werethey aware of any new or altered neuro-muscularcapabilities or functions. They knew they had a jobto do, and what the job was. They were on their own:no mercy from one side, no help from the other.
More than three-score sleeps had passed sincetheir choreographed escape; only the events flashedthrough his mind; why they happened did not.
The Raven, on a lengthy umbilical-catwalk, hadbeen tethered to the Guardian Station, ostensiblyfor maintenance after a servicing round ofnearby communications boosters. The ship wasskeleton-staffed. Brad and his companions hadbeen secretly transferred beforehand to a cubicleadjacent access to the catwalk.
At Brad's signal, the Sentinels moved quickly.Hodak, acting as clumsily as he could, slammedand locked the passageway safety doors with theloudest noises he could generate, broadcasting theunusual activity to all within hearing range and forelectronic sensor pickup.
They had lurched and stumbled noisily along thecatwalk, Adari suppressing giggles. As the lastof the six cleared in through the Raven's airlock, Hodak had hit "Emergency," on appropriateswitches and the ship-to-station servicing lines wentthrough quick-disconnect. Portals closed and locked.
Within seconds, Brad was on the bridge and his crewat rehearsed departure stations. The caretakerofficer and his two aides stepped aside, silent,businesslike. They were Ram's men.
Adari hit the tether-disconnect. Disengaged, thecatwalk coiled in toward the station as the shipedged away. Signaling Hodak for minimal repulse andacceleration to increase the drift, Brad ordered allhands immediately into accelo-nets. He increasedthrusters to 'low' and, following a moment's pauseinto 'intermediate'. As soon as he sensed theycould handle the acceleration he stepped the thrustup to successive levels.
The old tub creaked, pitched, rolled and yawed;lights flickered and dimmed; systems slippedinto yellow or borderline red on half a dozenindicators, all recorded on the ship's log. TheRaven all but flapped wings, and true to hername, took off. To the hundreds who watchedfrom the station's portholes, the escape wasreal. The cover might hold.
The alarms went out from the Guardian Station toSector Space Guard, and from there to a patrollerconveniently distant.
Messages spunneled throughout the sector andto Earth and Luna: "Escape of dangerous felons,","Sabotage of station surveillance system,","Station 15 unable to respond in time," or"Immediate pursuit and capture essential" withabundant 'Expedites' and 'ASAPs' scatteredthroughout the text.
The scenario was exquisite. The word was out,and within hours, had spread system-wide.
##
A couple of million kay out, Ram's men boardeda well-stocked lifeboat and headed back to aprearranged pick-up. The Raven settled intooutbound, Brad aware of an opportunity to mergewith traffic at a not too distant spunnel gate.
##
Brad brought his mind back to the present asthe flitter settled on the landing pad near air lock22. Entering the pressure compartment and attainingatmospheric balance the Sentinels removed theirsuits and sealed them in wall lockers. The switchof weapons and holsters to clips on their innercoveralls completed, they strolled out of thestorage room and mingled with a throng of citizencommuters. Moments later they were on a movingtransit strip on their way to beautiful downtownColdfield.
The strip cut across and through narrow streetsand alleys lined with huts fused from the graydetritus of the planet.
Occasionally, a mall or square appeared along thetransit route, lined with workshops, playgrounds,and colorful private houses or apartment complexes.Occasionally, they passed a dwarf tree or aflowering shrub in an earth-filled container.
Running and leaping alongside the moving strip asit passed slowly through stations, hawkers wavedand shouted at the commuters and passers-by,inviting them to examine and purchase the noveltiesand artefacts they waved about or in nearby openair stalls. From above, lighted globes, strung closebeneath the dome, cast a harsh, grotesque glareacross the city.
People swarmed, and a raucous clamor shrilled alongthe tightly packed streets and alleys. Men, womenand children in all shapes and sizes: tall, short,stocky, slender, organic, bionic, robotic, andcombinations thereof. Hairstyles ranged fromtotally shaved skulls to elaborate hair-puffs, andgarments from dreary, simple shifts to flamboyant,complex robes that twisted, circled, and knottedaround their wearers.
This was Planet Pluto post-secession: a mixture ofmigrants from across the system. The tank towntook them all, for itself or for Slingshot, or both.Those who stayed procreated, natural or clone,according to their customs or inclinations. Theeffect was a mixture of breeds whose interactionshad brought out a bewildering patchwork of hybridcults, philosophies and arts. Behavior ran thegamut; newcomers accepted or were overwhelmed.
Kumiko pointed ahead. The Condor loomed,a sprawling, multi-storied, down-at-the heelsapartment-hotel, its surface colors akin to thelow, drab rise on which it stood.
Disembarking the strip, the companions assembled,slipped into an alley and entered a portal into thecrowded lobby. Joining the laughing, chatteringthrong, they squeezed their way to the desk robot,and registered as a group. Individual identicardsejected from an aperture, assigning them to a smallapartment with sleeping cubicles off a common room.The communal lavatory and electronic bio-showerwere down the hall.
Entering the apartment and tossing their gear intoa corner, they kept up a running chatter. Hodak'smain concern was where their next meal was comingfrom.
"Gotta find jobs or we don't eat," he barked as hehoisted his pack on to a sleep pad and tore at itsflaps.
Kumiko and Adari opened and slammed cabinets,checked housekeeping supplies and "ooh-ed" and"ah-ed" each discovery. Myra and Brad stompedinto a sleeping cubicle and heaved the sleepingpads first one way, then the other.
"Look in the corners," Hodak bawled across thenarrow hall, "that's where the little buggers buildtheir nests."
Myra shrieked and drew her sidearm as Brad steppedback. She set the ray-spread to conic and ran thebeam from one end of the pad to the other, intothe corners and along the walls. They inspectedthe results, laughed loudly, and went on to the nextcubicle to repeat their exuberant performance.
Zolan strolled from one room to the next,sharing the action with his noisy friends,meanwhile scanning the walls, ceiling, floor,lighting fixtures, visi-screens and cabinets.
He
rounded toward Brad and brushed againsthim. His fingers pressed their message. Theothers, watching, drew the correct conclusion.
The rooms were bugged, sight and sound.