«I doubt if your machines will work. You never heard of an inhibitor field, but we have our projectors ready to generate one over the whole planet if need be. But it will not stop certain other devices we have had in preparation. If you blaspheme against the Galactic lord, major miracles will be in order. The lord himself might appear, ten kilometers tall with lightning blazing around him. Can your god do that?»
«Then»—Sharr spoke out of a dry, constricted throat—«you admit it is true—?»
«If you like,» said the archbishop cheerfully. «But try to get anyone to believe that.»
Slinh had a room—more accurately, a den—in one of the old abandoned sewers under the city. The little stony niche was dank and slimy and vile-smelling, but it was at least fairly safe from the police who were rounding up all aliens. Wing Alak sat hunched on the floor and cursed the day he was born.
«This hideout may be saving my life,» he grumbled, «but I wonder if life is worth saving on such terms.»
The little reptile coiled before him leered complacently. «It’s all I can offer the great Patrolman,» he gibed. His eyes glistened in the dim glow of the radiant heater that was his sole article of furniture. «If you don’t like it—»
«Never mind, never mind.» Alak tried to get down another mouthful of the fishy mess the Rassalan called food but decided it involved too great a risk of losing what he already had eaten. «Now about this deal you offered to make—we have to act fast. Already we’re too late to prevent the war but it’ll take the Luanian battle fleet a few days to get started for Marhal, or the Marhalians a few days to get to us. In that time we have to stop the war. Once battle is joined, it’ll be pretty hopeless before several million have been killed.»
«Never mind the pious platitudes,» said Slinh coldly. «A being who makes deals with sivva peddlers can’t afford to moralize. The point is that I’m running a terrific risk in helping you and will expect a commensurate reward.»
«Such as—?»
«How about a million League credits? That’s a good round number.»
«Done.» Alak reached for his checkbook. «Only I’ll give you my personal check. Then if I’m killed and you escape»—he grinned in the sullen red light—«it’ll do you no good, because I haven’t near that much in my account. But if we both survive, the Patrol will transfer a million to me and you’ll get ’em.»
«How do I know you won’t welsh?»
«You don’t. But if you think back, you may recall that the Patrol has that much honor. Not that we have any notions about the sacredness of oaths—I’ve committed perjury often enough when the occasion called for it—but we don’t want to antagonize allies such as yourself. You, for instance, get around. You have contacts. We may have other jobs for you in the future.»
«I may be a sivva runner,» said Slinh contemptuously, «but I haven’t yet sunk to being a Patrolman.» He took the check and laid it carefully in the purse worn about his neck. «Very well. Now I’ve given you a hideout, but you can’t stay here long. So I’ll help you along further in case you can find a way for us both to get off this planet.»
«If I complete my job, we both will,» replied Alak. «If I don’t, it’ll be too bad—for me at any rate.» He looked into the dripping gloom of the tunnel. The light was like blood on his thin pale face.
Slinh shivered. «You’re crazy as well as a crook,» he said. «Two hunted, weaponless beings against an armed system—Starfire, even stereofilms don’t indulge in that kind of trash any more.» He huddled closer to the heater. «Why doesn’t your glorious Patrol just bring its great battle fleet over here and tell the Luanians there’ll be peace or else? What kind of policeman is it that makes deals with criminals and skulks in old sewers?»
Alak ignored the complaint. Presently he stirred, holding cold hands over the red glow. «Voal is officially only premier of Luan and its colonies on other planets,» he said. «But he has influence enough to swing events as he wishes.»
«Unfortunately, he believes in what he says. You can’t bribe him.»
«No, maybe not. Unless the price was sufficiently high—Look, he’s married. He has two little children and I don’t think those pictures of him playing with them are all posed.»
«If you’re thinking what I’m thinking—» began Slinh. «Anyway, the secret service guards—»
Alak took the vibrosphere out of his pocket. «I fooled them with this once,» he said. «It’s a secret Patrol weapon and it may fool them again. It has to!» Briefly, he explained its operation. Then he went on, his voice rising with excitement:
«Voal has a private estate in the country, about fifty kilometers from here. His family should be there—and you can carry a three-year-old child—»
They sneaked out of the tunnel after dark, emerging in a narrow alley of the Old City. Crouching back into the shadows, they strained their senses—no, no vigilance beyond routine patrols and the tension that lay like a shroud over the whole planet, the expectation of death from the skies. The whole capital huddled under its force dome, waiting for the hammer blows of hyperatomic bombs and gravity snatchers, the silent murder of radiodust and biotoxin and all the synthetic hell which could lay waste a world in hours. Whether or not the enemy bombardments could penetrate that shield was an open question—it was the business of the navy to see that the matter was never decided, by going to Marhal and blowing the system open before the Marhalians took off for Luan.
Alak and Slinh went along the darkened walks. Not many beings were abroad, though the taverns shook with an unnatural hysterical merriment. It was no trick to find a parked ground-air car and appropriate it with the help of Alak’s key. The difficulty would lie in escaping from the city.
The Patrolman sent the car whispering into the sky toward the dimly glowing force-field. In moments, the call screen was buzzing and blinking an angry red. Alak switched over to the police band, keeping his face cowled and shadowed. An indignant helmeted head glared out of the screen at him.
«Where do you think you’re going?» demanded the policeman.
«Officer, I’ve got to get out of the city,» said Alak. «My wife and children—»
«The screen isn’t lowered for any civilian in wartime. One second without protection and—Now get back on the ground where you belong.»
«Be reasonable, officer. If the Marhalians were within ten lightyears you’d be alerted. I… I wasn’t expecting war. I left my family up at North Pole Resort—that’s no place for them to be in wartime. They’ll recall my wife anyway, she’s an electronician—»
«How many times must I—»
«Of course, I could take it up with my old friend Jeron Kovals,» said Alak, naming the city police chief, «but I didn’t think he’d want to be bothered—»
«Well, there’s a lot of military and government traffic tonight. Wait till the next official car comes along, then you can go out with it.»
«Thanks,» Alak snapped off the screen and let his body relax, muscle by muscle. It was as much as he’d dared hope for. But if his theft was discovered while he waited—
It wasn’t. The stolen car slipped past the lowered force-dome together with a long sleek black flier bearing several stars. Alak took a direct north course until the city was behind the horizon, then opened the car up and swung in a screaming arc for the Premier’s estate.
Nighted countryside slipped beneath him. The numbers representing position co-ordinates changed on the car’s dashboard. He let the autopilot take over, and studied the landscape below.
«Mostly agricultural,» he said. «But… wait, there’s a pretty big region of forested hills. We’ll hide there.»