Whoever was in charge had thrown a cordon around the area and from every direction more of them approached.
Peter Lucas was sick of death and pain. They were not shooting. They wanted him alive. His hand shook as the weapon bit a piece out of the advancing circle. He wished that they would shoot. Anything but this stupid and futile advance into dissolution.
His hand was shaking and he realized that he could not kill many more. He knew that he could take but a few more lives before the pity in him stopped his hand.
And as he lifted the weapon Ellen clung to his arm and said, “No. No more, Peter. Not any more!”
And he knew that she felt as he did. In the moment before they rushed, gaining courage from his lowering of the silent, deadly weapon, he smiled down at her and whispered, “Good-by, Ellen.”
They hit him in a concerted rush, and he spun, fell, tried to roll with the device under him so that he could grind it into a nothingness which no man could decipher.
His wrist was caught and his face was ground into the rocks. His hand was pulled up into the small of his back until he could no longer hold it shut.
His wrists were handcuffed behind him and he was dragged roughly to his feet. They held him and one of them, a young guard, was crying. He looked at the men who moaned and moved useless limbs, and he hit Lucas in the face with all his strength.
Lucas could not fall. Another group surrounded Ellen. A purplish bruise was forming on her cheek, but she held her head high.
The man in charge wore guard’s gray, insignia of captain’s rank on one shoulder, the interlocked WA of World Administration on the other. He had a cold, competent look, entirely unlike the red, surly anger of the police official who walked beside him.
The captain said, “These two will be taken immediately to the trucks. And they will not be beaten or injured in any way whatever. Is that clear?”
The men nodded. The young guard said, “Let me get one more smack at him. My brother is over there with—”
“Silence!” the captain snapped. “Take them to the trucks.”
Ellen and Peter were forced to lie down on the bed of the truck. The guards kept the mob back. There was hate in the shrill jeers and boos of the citizens.
Lucas shuddered as he heard the animal sound of those massed voices. If they should get their hands on Ellen...
Someone yelled above the crowd noise, “Roll it. Full speed.”
The trucks roared and jounced. A heavy stone arched into the truck, bounced off the bed and rebounded to cut a gash across the back of a guard’s hand. He cursed and sucked the wound, clinging tightly with his other hand.
The truck made a wild turn and Lucas was skidded over against Ellen. His fingertips touched her arm and he exerted a gentle pressure. The angry noises faded behind them.
Above them the gray of the morning sky had changed to a clear, deep blue. Lucas looked up at it, at two drifting puffs of white cloud. Though he saw everything with the abnormal clarity of a man who is already dead, he felt peace within him. He felt a stolid disregard for what might happen, and he thought that there would be further rebellion, further defiance by the technical workers. And one day one of them would succeed in taking over enormous power. Then the earth could forsake this barren plateau of static mediocrity, could once again reach toward the stars.
The truck ground to a halt, and he heard the procedure of identification. It started again, winding up a graveled road. The truck went through an arched entrance that cut off the sky with the suddenness of a blow.
When it stopped, Lucas’ ankles were seized and he was pulled back out of the bed of the truck. To the left was an open door. He was herded through the door so rapidly that he had no chance to look back at Ellen.
Two men were with him, one of them the captain. Ahead were three elevators. He was pushed roughly into the middle one. The door was silently shut and it went up with an acceleration that pressed his feet hard against the soft floor.
This was not what he had expected. Dale Evan should have been the responsible official, the one to decree electro-surgery; but he knew within seconds that they were not in the Bureau of Improvement Building. The insignia of the captain, plus the duration of the elevator trip, told him that they were in the World Administration Building.
He was pushed into a plain, windowless room about ten feet square. The glowing baseboard was the light source. He was carefully searched by the lower-ranking guard. The captain unlocked the handcuffs and the two of them left, closing the door, locking it.
In this soundproofed room, time had no meaning. He realized how close he was to the extreme limit of emotional exhaustion.
So his little escapade was a matter of a higher level than Bureau affairs. He smiled wryly as he thought of Dale Evan’s discomfiture. The technical workers would have hard sledding for many months — provided the angry public didn’t tear the place apart.
At last he stretched out on the hard floor, felt sleep rush over him like a dark tide.
Ellen Morrit was awakened by the unlocking of the door of her small, featureless room. The matron who had brought her to the room came in, put fresh clothes on the floor, stood aside while a second woman brought in a basin of water, various toilet articles.
“Fix yourself up,” she said. “He doesn’t like filth.”
Alone, Ellen Morrit washed and dressed, and as she held the mirror she thought that she could shatter it against the floor, slash her wrists with the shards of glass. Yet the mystery, why it was necessary to be made beautiful in order to die, was a nagging question.
The dress provided was of a dark, rich fabric, a weave unfamiliar to her. It combined extreme thinness with warmth.
She was ready when they came for her. The matron carried a thin chain with a wooden handle on the end. She made two loops around Ellen’s wrist and Ellen knew that a half turn of the handle would bring excruciating pain.
She was taken back to the elevator, and once again taken upward.
She gasped as the elevator door opened. One whole wall of the room was of glass, craftily curved so as to eliminate reflections. Far below stretched the entire expanse of the New City.
“Hello, Ellen,” Peter Lucas said. She turned quickly, saw him seated in a deep chair of blonde wood. He wore clothes of the same dark fabric as hers. His arms were held flat to the arms of the chair by two wide, shining bands of metal that clamped them firmly.
The matron led her to the chair near his. Both chairs looked toward a raised dais, and beyond it were pale yellow draperies. When her arms were fastened, the matron left. The elevator door shut and they heard the tiny hum of power as it dropped.
She and Peter were alone in the room. It had an air of luxury and power, of quiet surroundings subordinated to a powerful personality.
She looked toward the bookshelves, noticed that the titles were of approved hooks. There was no clue to the owner of the room.
“What are we waiting for?” she asked.
His voice was harsh. “For the unforgettable pleasure of talking to Ryan, I believe. The Unit Advisor. This is high-level stuff.”
“Why do they want to talk to us?”
“That should be obvious, Ellen. They have you taped as helping me. They will want to know our methods. If we don’t talk freely, they’ll have some pretty ways of making us talk.”
A small table stood on the raised dais. On it was the device that had been taken from him. She wondered that they had not destroyed it.
Lucas said, “I wish you hadn’t been brought into this, Ellen.”
“After... after Forrester I couldn’t feel any loyalty to them.” She laughed. “He was so ridiculous. I let him think that he was flattering me. He was breathing so hard. When he had his arms around me I kicked him and I hit him in the mouth with my fist. I had the little battery in that hand. He fell and hit his head on the bench. I ran out to the locker room, through the other door, put on my street clothes and left. I didn’t know what to do with the battery. Then I saw you with the guard. It... it just seemed like a way of getting even.”