“Well, here goes.” Borges was still grimacing with relief at having got back safely from his first trip across the void. He went carefully along the ropes and was almost at the door when muffled gunfire made itself heard above the wind. There were several separate shots, followed by the continuous thunder of an automatic weapon. Borges froze, and his face, a contorted mask of shock, turned back to Stirling.
“Don’t stop,” Stirling shouted. “Get inside.”
Borges shook his head and began slithering back the way he had come. The automatic weapon sounded again, metal-tongued holes appeared in the sheeting of the door, and the door itself abruptly burst open as a body hit it from the inside. The swinging edge jerked the ropes away from the wall, taking the lower one out from under Borges’ feet. He fell silently, pedaling his legs like a man running for his life, shrinking into a frantic manikin which was swallowed by the impassive clouds. Stirling snatched his own soul back from a vicarious dive into eternity and strung his body into the vibrating ropes. The rational part of his mind immediately dissociated itself from the venture, and he moved mechanically, hardly aware of the significance of the drifting white and gray masses below. He clawed open the door, threw himself into the opening, and sprawled across the body that lay just inside. It was wearing a white F.T.A. uniform.
Stirling looked up and saw Dix standing a few feet away with an automatic rifle cradled on his hip. His lower teeth were displayed hi an inhuman grin, and he kept the gun pointing at Stirling’s face. Stirling was beginning to feel hopelessly afraid when there was a sound of running feet, and Johnny and Theodore appeared from behind a screen of heavily shielded cables. “All clear up top,” Johnny said. “I see you got one.”
“Yeah.” Dix nodded complacently. “I got one.”
“Two,” Stirling corrected. “Borges was just outside the door when you decided to have your bit of fun. You got two.” He kept his eyes fixed on Johnny’s as he spoke, and saw them cloud momentarily with pain and doubt.
“I had to do it, Jaycee,” Dix said sullenly. “That guy came at me like a crazy man.”
“He must have been a crazy man.” Stirling got to his feet. “Considering you had his gun.”
Johnny hesitated, fighting some lonely battle far inside himself; then he shrugged and turned away, avoiding Stirling’s eyes.
“Why are you standing about?” Johnny’s voice filled Stirling with a dismayed sadness. “The world’s waiting to hear from us.”
Chapter Thirteen
There was very little free space anywhere in the station’s four floors, but the F.T.A. men had managed to find enough room on the top level to set up a kind of field camp. Just inside the rarely used entrance were three portable beds, chairs and a small table, and a communications set. A hatch, which had been cut in the roof, led to a nest of two heavy machine guns and a modern rad-rifle.
The raid had gone better than they might have expected. Apart from the loss of Borges, the only casualty among the villagers was Forsythe, who had been kicked in the eye and almost blinded while going through to the roof. Of the four F.T.A. men who had been in the station, one was dead—at the hands of Dix—and another had been shot in the knee. Johnny permitted the two remaining men to put their wounded comrade on a negative-gravity sled and fly him back to the elevator head. They had gone gratefully, with curious looks at the bearded viking, whose voice was a thin squawk issuing from a tarnished medallion at his throat.
In the meantime, Theodore, who was the party’s nearest approach to an electronics expert, had been examining the communications set. Johnny sat down on a bed and began removing the extra clothing he had put on for the raid.
“What’s the range of that thing?”
Theodore looked up from the set “I’m out of touch, Jaycee. Can’t say for sure.”
“Will it reach the coast?”
“Which one?”
“What do you mean which one? The Bast Coast, of course. If I use that thing, will they hear me in Newburyport?”
“Sure thing, Jaycee. They’ll be able to see you too.”
“All right, fix it up for me. I want to talk now.”
“Johnny.” Stirling had been leaning against a wall, with unfocused eyes watching Borges fall into the clouds. “Do you want to block the channels right now? Lomax could come through at any minute, and it might be best to straighten him out first.”
Johnny raised his eyebrows. “I don’t think that would be too bright. If Lomax gets an idea of what we’re planning, he’ll do anything to stop us. He might have equipment there which could jam this set. Right, Theo?”
Theodore nodded; and Stirling realized he had been nursing a tiny, illogical hope that, somehow, he would succeed in escaping from the nightmare and get off the lie with his anonymity still intact. But once the story became public, there would be an explosion which, as well as harming the F.T.A., would permanently alter the lives of all the men concerned. He could never again become Vic Stirling, the strolling reporter, the man whose only concern in life was keeping it at arm’s length. All the wordage he had written against the F.T.A., all the anger he had expressed, none of it had ever touched another human being; and at last he understood why. He had been playing games and now—through blind chance—had strayed into the big league, where there was no second-guessing and the umpire’s decision was very, very final.
Johnny walked over to the communications set. “How about wavelength? Who am I going to talk to?”
“How about using a police wavelength, Jaycee? That should stir things up for a start—and you get a lot of nosy characters listening in as well.” Theodore spoke with the kind of patient, manufactured enthusiasm the villagers often used when addressing Johnny.
“That’ll do. Set it up.”
Johnny positioned himself in front of the set’s console and began to talk, without hesitation or any signs of self-consciousness about either his ridiculous voice or the equally unlikely context of his message. He began by identifying himself by name and former address: John Considine, Fam-apt 126-46, Flat-block 353, Res-area 93N-54W. As he reeled off the string of figures, Johnny’s eyes met Stirling’s for an instant, and their minds vaulted into realms beyond normal communication. Always think a good address is so important, don’t you? But Stirling got a depressing intuition that this was the last real contact he and his brother would make.
Speaking calmly but quickly, Johnny stated where he was speaking from and, at Theodore’s instigation, invited listeners with direction-finding equipment to check his bearing. He went on to say he was an eyewitness to the destruction of crops by F.T.A. men who were building living quarters on the He, and that his statement would be verified by a reporter from the Newburyport Record, who was also present. Stirling took his place at the set and confirmed everything Johnny had said; he also added that the F.T.A. had used machine guns in an effort to prevent their activities being brought to the attention of the American public.
He had barely finished speaking when Theodore picked up an incoming call and threw the picture onto the set’s main screen. Stirling recognized the pale, round face, and sliced-liver lips of Jepson Lomax.
“Stirling!” Lomax leaned forward until the camera distorted his features. “You’ve brought yourself some real trouble this time. It may interest you to know that your name has gone up to Mr. Hodder himself, and that …”
“It may interest you,” Stirling interrupted, “to know that we’ve been using this communications set to broadcast direct to the East Coast.”
“You’ve … what?”
“Starting any moment now, you’re going to get a lot of calls about what’s been going on here, Lomax. And I imagine your name has gone up to Mr. Hodder himself along with mine.” Stirling was surprised to discover how much he was enjoying the hour of self-immolation.