Below him the side of the Koh-i-Nor's North Tower fell sheer in an unbroken pattern of alternate window glass and marbled tile to the top level of commuter traffic, sixty stories below. Postage-stamp-size directly underneath him was the main concourse in front of the tower, and, a narrow two hundred yards away across it, some sort of office building with a single aircar on its landing pad, and the highly-polished surface of the building's construction tile reflecting the utter blue of the sky.
He turned back from the parapet. On the white table top nearly beside him was a brightly-illustrated throw-away magazine left by some earlier visitor to the terrace. The breeze across the terrace ruffled and tried to turn its pages. He glanced at the titles in colorful type on its cover. The lead one jumped at him.
WAS GANDHI'S WAY RIGHT? And under this, in slightly less bold print:
The Psychotics of Our Overcrowded Cities
The author of this later article, he noticed with interest, was the same Dr. Elizabeth Williams, psychiatrist, he had encountered only the week before.
He reached for the magazine to turn to the article.
"Formain," said a voice. He looked up and turned.
Facing him from about fifteen feet away, his hand on the half-open French door through which he must just have stepped out onto the terrace, was Butler. The small hotel security man stood with one hand thrust into the right pocket of his barrel-cut jacket His face was as polite as ever.
"You better come along quietly with me, Formain," he said.
Paul let go of the magazine. The fingers of his single hand flexed reflexively. He took a casual step in Butler's direction.
"Stop there," said Butler. He took his hand out of his pocket, revealing a small finger gun. Paul stopped.
"Don't be foolish," said Paul.
Butler looked at him with the closest approach to a flicker of emotion in his face that Paul had yet seen.
"I think that's my line," Butler said. "Don't be foolish, Formain. Come along quietly."
Paul looked across the short distance separating them. His first impulse, as it had been with the agent in the hallway, had been to go into action. He had checked that And now a part of him waited critically to see what the other part of him might do. He looked at Butler, trying to narrow down his mental field of vision. Trying to see the man as something individual, unique, limited by the forces that tied him into his environment, by the very elements that made him dangerous.
Anyone can be understood, Paul told himself. Anyone.
For a second, Butler's image seemed to swim in Paul's retina with the effort Paul was making, like a figure seen through the bottom of a drinking glass. Then the image cleared.
"I don't intend to be foolish," said Paul. He sat down on the edge of the table beside him. "I'm not going with you."
"Yes," said Butler. He held the finger gun steady.
"No," said Paul. "If you take me in, in tell the police that you were the source of supply for the drugs of the man in 2309. Ill tell them you used to be a drug addict yourself."
Butler gave a small, tired sigh.
"Come along, Formain," he said.
"No," said Paul. "To take me, you'll have to shoot me first. If you kill me, there's bound to be the kind of investigation you don't want. If you do less than kill me, I'll tell them what I just told you I'd say."
There was a moment's silence on the terrace. While it lasted, they could both hear the leaves of the magazine rustling in the breeze.
"I am not a drug addict," said Butler.
"No," said Paul. "But you were until some fanaticism, some particular blind faith gave you the strength to kick the habit. You're not afraid of the fact being found out so much as the fact that an investigation into the fact would cause you to be cut off from this source of strength. If I mention it, the police will have to investigate the matter. So, you're going to let me go."
Butler regarded him. The security man's expression was as unreadable as ever, but the finger gun jerked for a second as his hand trembled momentarily. He hid the hand back in the pocket of his jacket.
"Who told you?" he asked.
"You did," said Paul. "Being the sort of man you are, the rest had to follow."
Butler watched him for a second more, then turned toward the French door behind him.
"Someday I'll make you tell me who told you," he said, and went back into the banquet rooms where the chessmen were at war.
The French door had barely closed behind him when one of the other doors opened and Kantele stepped through, quickly closing the door behind her. She came quickly over to Paul, her fine-cut features pale and her lips a little compressed above the square blue shoulders of her tailored jacket and the tooled-leather strap of the heavy handbag cutting into one of them.
"How did you - no, don't tell me," she corrected herself as she met him. "There isn't time. There are a dozen more hotel men going through the banquet rooms. Here..."
She lifted her large handbag onto one of the tables and pressed it at certain points. It opened out like a slow-motion jack-in-the-box. It was a one-man parachute copter, of the emergency type used by aircraft and fire departments. She unbuckled the straps that would fit around his shoulders and helped him into it.
"As long as the air-traffic police don't spot you, you'll be all right," she said, tightening the straps upon him. "Head for the rooftop of that building opposite."
The sound of one of the French doors opening made them both turn. It flew open, smashing against one of the tables, and two men catapulted onto the terrace, drawing guns from their jackets.
Paul did not hesitate. With one sweep of his powerful arm he snatched up the table alongside and threw it, as if it had been a balsawood mock-up of itself, at the two charging men.
They dodged, but not quickly enough. They went down before it. And Paul, sweeping Kantele up in his grasp, took one long step to the top of the parapet, and another off into sixty levels of emptiness.
Chapter 9
They fell like a stone, while Paul's hand, restricted by the fact that his arm must keep its hold on Kantele, fumbled with the controls of the parachute copter. He located them finally and switched them on, and suddenly it was like a heavy brake being applied against the force of gravity as the spinning blades blurred into action to break their fall.
"I'm sorry," he said to Kantele. "But they'd seen you with me. I couldn't leave you behind to face the music."
She did not answer. Her head lay back and sideways against his shoulder and her eyes were closed. Her face was like the face of someone who has surrendered completely to some superior force.
Paul turned his attention to guiding the copter toward the building across the concourse from the hotel. He was only partially successful. The copter, powerful enough to handle a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound individual, was fighting a losing battle in trying to uphold the combined weights of a man and woman both went above the average in size. They were drifting off and down at a long slant, the way the winged seed of a maple tree flutters to earth in fall winds.
"The rooftop, you said?" asked Paul. Her eyes remained closed. He joggled her a little. "Kantele!"
She opened her eyes, slowly.
"Yes," she said. "What's that noise?"
There were faint, piping noises around them. Looking back over his shoulder, Paul saw the two men he had bowled over with the table, leaning on the parapet with their forearms, almost casually. But the fists of both held dark objects. They were shooting at Paul and Kantele.