“Boom the whole thing exploded. My genius.” She reached up and pulled me to her as the collar clicked open, and bestowed a warm and passionate kiss that I returned for a bit until I remembered where we were and disentangled gently. She sat up shakily and tried the key in my collar.
“And I suppose you have some wonderfully ingenious explanation of how you killed these fiends?”
“Not dead yet, just unconscious. I filed one fingernail to a point sharp enough to scratch skin, then punted it with callanite.” “Of course! Invisible to the eye and it would take a spectrometric test to find the tiny trace. But more than enough to render the scratchee instantly unconscious. What next?”
“A phone call to get the rest of the operation going in case that explosion wasn’t heard outside the building. But they have listening devices…”
Before I could finish the sentence the lights went out. Since the room had no windows we were in complete darkness and I was lost, falling, out of contact with reality.
“Angelina!” I called out, aware of the hoarseness of my voice. “I am juiced to the eyeballs with narco drugs that cut off almost all pain sensation, which is why I could polish off the guard even though he was jazzing me with his shock box. But this also means I can’t feel anything at all—I’m completely numb. All I can do is hear in the darkness. You’ll have to help.”
“What should I do?”
“Find Kraj and drag him over to me. I’m going to see if we can’t get him out with us.”
She pulled him out from behind the desk, none too gently from the sounds I heard, and helped me get him up on my shoulders.
“Now lead us out of here. You’ll have to guide me because I have no way at all of moving around in this darkness. Across to the other side of the hall, then left for about 45 meters until you come to the stairs. Then down, all the way.”
Angelina took my hand and we were off. I slammed into a couple of things but that wasn’t her fault since I still had no sense of touch. It was easier and faster in the hall where she could follow the wall with one hand. There were voices shouting in the distance as well as one or two satisfying screams. My exploding wardrobe was providing plenty of distraction, coupled with the electrical failure. Then, just as I was congratulating myself on how well things were going, the lights flickered and came back on dimly.
We stopped, frozen, blinking in the sudden illumination and feeling as though we were in the middle of a spotlit stage. There must have been at least a dozen people in sight.
But they were all ignoring us, involved in their own troubles, barely aware of each other. A uniformed fat official actually ran by us, eyes wide with fear after the explosion and the darkness, not even seeing us.
“The stairway, quick,” I said and lumbered forward as fast as I could with Kraj bounding on my shoulders.
Of course it was too good to last. The emergency limits flickered and dimmed redly and seemed about to expire at any minute. A soldier coming towards us had enough time to look and to think about what he was seeing. It finally dawned on him that something was wrong and he raised his gaussrifle and shouted to us to stop.
Angelina had Kraj’s pistol and she fired just once. The soldier folded and we were at the stairs—when the lights went out again and stayed out.
The stairs were difficult to maneuver, though some sensation was coming back and I could feel a certain amount. But I dropped Kraj once, we both laughed a little at this and rolled him down an extra step or two for good measure, and a moment later I fell against Angelina and almost toppled us both headlong. After this we went more carefully and one flight down someone spoke.
“We’ve been waiting to take you out. Just stand still.”
It was a girl’s voice, and not speaking Cliaandian, or Angelina would have blown the whole stairwell up. We waited and I felt someone’s hands touching my head, putting on a pair of heavy glasses. Then I could see again, with everything in harsh contrast. They were infrared goggles and the girl who was waiting for us had a hand projector. We went down almost at a run after that, while she called on her com-radio. Taze was waiting at the foot of the stairs.
“We sent people up all the staircases to try and contact you. They are coming back now. This way.”
They took Kraj from me. I couldn’t feel any pain or fatigue, but I was sure from the way my muscles were vibrating that I would ache all over when the drug wore off. We went at a fast trot to the open mouth of the service tunnel.
“In,” Taze ordered. “There are cars waiting at the other end.”
Chapter 19
Whenever I moved I groaned. A little more hollowly and theatrically than was really called for by my condition, but it made Angelina feel wanted and took her mind off her troubles. She clucked about like a mother hen, plunking the pillows under my head, pouring me soothing drinks, peeling sweet fruits and cutting them into tiny pieces for me to nibble on. I hoped that these wifely ministrations would keep her from remembering the torture box of the day before, and if she were thinking about this she never mentioned it. The air that moved in through the open windows was warm and the sky its usual brilliant blue.
“Were there any casualties?” I said. “I meant to ask when I woke up but my head is still swimming in slow circles.”
“None to speak of. Some burns and scrapes and a few superficial wounds among the rear guard. Apparently everything went off just as you had planned. As soon as the explosion was heard they shorted all the phone and power lines that led to the Octagon and made a fearful mess of the wiring. Then the girls came through the tunnel and knocked out the emergency generator. You know the rest since you were obliging enough not to keel over until we reached the cars.”
“I would have been happy to do it earlier but I did not relish the thought of being dragged through the pipes by Taze’s amazons. They still don’t scan to think much of men. Maybe they’ll make me an honorary girl.”
“Let’s see that is all they make you. Dr. Mutfak phoned a little while ago to say that he had Kraj almost to the point where we could talk to him.”
“Then let’s go. This is a conversation I have been lodging forward to for a long time.”
When I got out of the bed my muscles creaked and snapped and I felt a thousand years old. I was wearing swimming attire, as was Angelina; informality was the order of the day at the luxurious Ringa Baligi. This also enabled us to do our dive for life if any troops came nosing around. Which made me think.
“What happens if any interfering Cliaandians come this way? I assume plans have been made to hide Kraj.”
“Hide is the correct word. Since he is unconscious he can be stowed in the back of one of the refrigerators. A good idea, particularly if they forget and leave him there.”
“Vengeance later, information now. I wonder what fascinating facts the good doctor has uncovered about our alien?”
“He’s not an alien,” Dr. Mutfak insisted. While I slept he had been working in the small but complete laboratory that was part of the mini-hospital in the hotel. “I will stake my reputation on it.”
“The only reputation that you have that I know of is as a brainsqueezer,” I said. “Can you be sure…”
“I will not be insulted by foreigners!” The doctor shouted, drawing himself up in anger so the top of his head almost reached my shoulder. “Insults from females I am used to, but from offworlders I will not bear. Even on the nameless planet where you were spawned it must be known that the basis of all medical training is a sound grounding in biology and physiology. It so happens that cytology is a bit of a hobby of mine—I could show you cells that would have you crying aloud with wonder—so I know what I am about. This man’s cells are human, so he is human. A viable homo sapiens.”