“Ameti Namang from beyond the Tindjil Ocean,” growled Kemul. “I just came with Proprietor Tasik here. Been on special duty for years.”
“Er… your accent… and I am sure I would remember your face from anywhere—”
Having sidled around to Kemul’s other side, so that the giant cut off view of him, Flandry exclaimed in a shocked stage whisper: “I beg you, desist! Can’t you tell when a man’s been in an accidental explosion?” He took his companion’s elbow. “Come, we mustn’t keep Tuan Bandang waiting.”
The stares which followed him Were like darts in his back.
Rain beat heavily on the roof of the verandah beyond. Lamplight glowed along garden paths, but even on this round-the-clock planet they weren’t frequented in such weather. Flandry glanced behind, at the slowly closing main doors. “In about thirty seconds,” he muttered, “our friend will either shrug off his puzzlement with a remark about the inscrutable ways of his superiors… or will start seriously adding two and two. Come on.”
They went down the staircase. “Damn!” said Flandry. “You forgot to bring rain capes. Think a pair of drowned rats can reclaim your aircar?”
“With a blaster, if need be,” snapped Kemul. “Stop complaining. You’ve at least been given a chance to die cleanly. It was bought for you at the hazard of two other lives.”
“Two?”
“It wasn’t Kemul’s idea, this, or his wish.”
Flandry fell silent. Rain struck his face and turned his clothes sodden. The path was like a treadmill, down which he walked endlessly between wet hedges, under goblin lamps. He heard thunder again, somewhere over the jungle.
Sudden as a blow, the garden ended. Concrete glimmered in front of a long hemicylindrical building. “Here’s where everybody lands,” grunted Kemul. He led the way to the office door. A kilted civilian emerged and bobbed the head to him. “Where’s my car?” said Kemul.
“So soon, tuan? You were only gone a short while—”
“I told you I would be. And you garaged my car anyhow? You officious dolt!” Kemul shoved with a brutal hand. The attendant picked himself up and hurried to the hangar doors.
Whistles skirled through the rain-rushing. Flandry looked back. Mountainous over all bowers and pools, the Central blinked windows to life like opening eyes. The attendant paused to gape. “Get moving!” roared Kemul.
“Yes, tuan. Yes, tuan.” A switch was pulled, the doors slid open. “But what is happening?”
I don’t know, Flandry thought. Maybe my absence was discovered. Or else somebody found a dead Guard. Or our friend in the common room got suspicious and called for a checkup. Or any of a dozen other possibilities. The end result is still the same.
He slipped a hand inside his blouse and rested it on the butt of his gun.
Lights went on in the hangar. It was crowded with aircars belonging to men serving their turns here. The attendant stared idiotically around, distracted by whistles and yells and sound of running feet. “Now, let’s see, tuan, which one is yours? I don’t rightly recall, I don’t—”
Four or five Guards emerged from the garden path into the lamplight of the field. “Get the car, Kemul,” rapped Flandry. He drew his revolver and slipped behind the shelter of a door. The attendant’s jaw dropped. He let out a squeak and tried to run. Kemul’s fist smote at the base of his skull. The attendant flew in an arc, hit, skidded across concrete, and lay without breathing.
“That was unnecessary,” said Flandry. It wrenched within him: Always the innocent get hurt worst.
The mugger was already among the cars. The squad of Guards broke into a run. Flandry stepped from behind his door long enough to fire several times. One man spun around on his heel, went over backward, and raised himself on all fours with blood smeared over his chest. The others scattered. And they bawled for help.
Flandry took another peek. The opposite side of the landing field was coming alive with Guards. Through their shouts and the breaking of branches under their feet, through the rain, boomed Warouw’s voice; “Surround the hangar. Squads Four, Five, Six, prepare to storm the entrance. Seven, Eight, Nine, prepare to fire on emerging vehicles.” He must be using a portable amplifier, but it was still like hearing an angered god.
Kemul grunted behind Flandry, shoving parked craft aside to clear a straight path for his own. As the three assault squads started to run across the concrete, Flandry heard him calclass="underline" “Get in, quick!”
The Terran sent a dozen shots into the nearing troop, whirled, and jumped. Kemul was at the controls of one vehicle, gunning the motor. He had left the door to the pilot section open. Flandry got a foot in it as the car spurted forward. Then they struck the Guards entering the hangar.
Somebody shrieked. Somebody else crunched beneath the wheels, horribly. One man seized Flandry’s ankle. Almost, the Terran was pulled loose. He shot, missed, and felt his antique weapon jam. He threw it at the man’s contorted brown face. The car jetted antigrav force and sprang upward. Flandry clung to the doorframe with two hands and one foot. He kicked with the captured leg. His enemy hung on, screaming. Somehow Flandry found strength to raise the leg until it pointed almost straight out, then bring it down again to bash his dangling burden against the side.
The Guard let go and fell a hundred meters. Flandry toppled back into the control section.
“They’ll have an armed flyer after us in sixty seconds,” he gasped. “Gimme your place!”
Kemul glared at him. “What do you know about steering?”
“More than any planet hugger. Get out! Or d’ you want us to be overhauled and shot down?”
Kemul locked eyes with Flandry. The wrath in his gaze was shocking. A panel cut off the rear section; this was a rich man’s limousine, though awkward and underpowered compared to the Guard ships Flandry had ridden. The panel slid back. Luang leaned into the pilot compartment and said, “Let him have the wheel, Kemul. Now!”
The mugger spat an oath, but gave up his seat. Flandry vaulted into it. “I don’t imagine this horse cart has acceleration compensators,” he said. “So get astern and buckle down tight!”
He concentrated for a moment on the controls. It was an old-fashioned, unfamiliar make of car, doubtless unloaded by some wily Betelgeusean trader. But having handled many less recognizable craft before, and being in peril of his life, Flandry identified all instruments in a few seconds.
Outside was darkness. Rain whipped the windshield. He saw lightning far off to the left. Making a spiral, he searched with his radar for pursuit Biocontrol Central glittered beneath him. His detector beeped and registered another vessel on a collision path. The autopilot tried to take over. Flandry cut it out of the circuit and began to climb.
His track was a long slant bearing toward the storm center. The radar on this medieval galley wouldn’t show what was behind him, but doubtless the Guard car had him spotted and was catching up fast. A whistling scream reminded Flandry he hadn’t slid the door shut. He did so, catching a few raindrops on his face. They tasted of wind.
Up and up. Now the lightning flashes were picking out detail for him, cumulus masses that rolled and reared against heaven and dissolved into a cataract at their base. Gusts thrummed the metal of the car. Its controls bucked. Thunder rilled the cabin.
With maximum speed attained. Flandry cut the drive beams, flipped 180 degrees around with a lateral thrust, and went back on full power. An instant he hung, killing velocity. Then he got going downward.
At a kilometer’s distance, the other vehicle came into view: a lean shark shape with twice his speed. It swelled monstrously to his eye. There were about ten seconds for its pilot to react. As Flandry had expected, the fellow crammed all he had into a sidewise leap, getting out of the way. Even so, Flandry shot past with about one meter to spare.