Quaid shoved Melina out of the way somewhat less romantically than he might have wished and whipped up his gun. He and Melina returned fire, but their bullets ricocheted back at them. They would take themselves out if they continued!
Richter had not depended on his soldiers. He had let them be a diversionary force while he set up his clever little ambush, knowing that Quaid would survive and come here. Richter was protected, while the two of them were not. Richter was getting smarter.
Quaid and Melina moved erratically around the cabin, trying not to be sitting ducks. But it wasn’t enough. They remained fish in a barrel. Richter kept shooting, and winged Quaid in the shoulder.
This was no good! Quaid swung the door open. He and Melina climbed out and scaled opposite sides of the elevator. Richter shot down at them, and they shot back. Now they were outside, and Richter was no longer protected by the invulnerable metal of the elevator. He had to keep his body out of the line of fire.
Melina dodged a bullet, lost her balance, dropped her gun, and saved herself only by holding on with both hands, her feet swinging over the void.
Richter aimed at Quaid. Quaid grabbed his arm.
In that moment, Quaid looked up. Behind Richter he saw the next platform. The elevator was speeding toward it. Anything extending outside the elevator car would be guillotined! Quaid was like dough watching the cookie-cutter come at his extremities. Richter saw it too. He grinned crookedly.
Quaid tried to climb up on top with Richter, but Richter pushed him away. Quaid grabbed Richter’s other arm—and hung there. All four arms would be severed any second.
Now Richter heaved back, pulling his arms out of danger and effectively giving Quaid a helping pull onto the top of the elevator. The last thing he wanted to do was save Quaid, but he valued his own flesh. Quaid curled his feet out of danger barely ahead of the seemingly falling edge.
Melina trapezed herself into the elevator an inch ahead of the blade that sliced down her side of the car.
Cohaagen stood near the alien control room as the demolitions experts unloaded their equipment. He had hoped to get something useful from this alien contraption, but he couldn’t afford to have it start to produce air for Mars. He didn’t know who Quaid might have told his suspicion about that air, and couldn’t be sure that every last Rebel agent had been exterminated. Obviously the Rebel woman had corrupted Quaid, and she could have blabbed the secret far and wide. So he had to destroy it now, before any more pseudo-patriots got smart ideas. Monopoly was a funny thing: once it was lost, it could almost never be put back together. The specter of free air would generate an endless number of would-be revolutionaries. So it was time to put a stop to the whole thing, by eliminating the possibility. He had been foolish to delay it this long, but there had been a nuisance about preserving alien artifacts, and Earth-government officials had been pestering him. Well, after this he would give them free access to the Pyramid Mine, and they could admire the alien wreckage to their hearts’ content. One thing was certain: there would be no free air, and his power would be secure.
He peered down the elevator shaft. He saw two tiny figures fighting on top of the rising elevator. That meant that Quaid had survived Richter’s cleanup mission and was still making trouble. He had to admire Quaid’s persistence; he was drawing on the skills of Hauser, who had been matchless as an agent. Too bad the man had gone wrong. He had been much better than Richter would ever be.
But it was time for a real pro to take a hand. Cohaagen brought out a grenade and carefully placed it in the gears of the elevator. Then he jogged off to the control room.
Boom! The grenade, crushed by the gears, exploded, destroying the elevator mechanism and blasting the elevator gantry from its moorings.
Cohaagen gazed at it with satisfaction. That should take care of Quaid and Richter, who had about outlived his usefulness.
Quaid and Richter, fighting viciously, heard the explosion and felt the elevator shake. The cables whipped around dangerously. The elevator ground to a stop.
The elevator gantry swung out from its moorings, slowly, its measured pace like that of the second hand of a watch.
Richter looked up, fathoming what had happened. “Shit! He cut me off too!” he exclaimed.
“It’s so hard to find good friends in the snake pit,” Quaid said with mock sympathy.
Then the two of them hung on for dear life as the gantry levered out over the abyss like falling timber.
Quaid, despite his mockery of his enemy, was not at all sure of continued life. It looked like a long way down!
Then the gantry caught on one of the enormous trusses, forming a bridge across a small arc of the pit. They wouldn’t fall—yet.
But as the gantry caught, the shock traveled back, and the two of them were jolted off the elevator car. Both reached out desperately, grabbing hold of anything.
Quaid caught a loose elevator cable. Richter did the same. But it was no good; the cables were unattached. They were faaaaaaaalllllllling…
Quaid’s whole life did not flash before his eyes, not even all of his recent life. His only thought was of Melina, who would look out of the elevator car to see him gone, and he suffered brief regret that their relationship had to end here. Theirs—and humanity’s, when the No’ui’s nova was triggered.
Hwang! Their plunge unexpectedly snapped to a halt. The cable had snagged on something.
No—Quaid and Richter were hanging on to opposite ends of a long piece of cable, which was draped over the gantry. They were swinging wildly back and forth, serving as counterweights to each other, about twenty-five feet down. They had saved each other: another irony.
Quaid looked around for some way off. There was none; they were dangling below the gantry, and there was nothing else within reach. Quaid caught a glimpse of the open elevator door and saw part of a form, unmoving. That would be Melina, lying semiconscious in the elevator car, jolted by the same shock that had thrown them off. What could she do, even if alert and active? Quaid and Richter had to survive or fall together, on their own.
As they swung, Richter took advantage of Quaid’s distraction to maneuver himself close. He kicked Quaid in the crotch. Quaid managed to twist just enough at the last moment to take the brunt on his thigh, and his unanchored body swung away, diminishing the impact, but still it hurt.
The motion caused the cable to slip a little. Quaid was a little heavier, and he slid down, while Richter was pulled the same amount up.
“Don’t!” Quaid cried.
On the next swing, Richter was higher. He kicked Quaid in the ribs. Again Quaid tried to turn, making it a glancing blow, but again it was too solid a blow for comfort.
“Stupid—!” Quaid cried. “Listen to me!” They were swinging out of range of each other at the moment, but that was temporary. “If you kick me off, you’ll fall too!”
“Bullshit!” Richter replied. Then, swinging close, he kicked at Quaid’s head.
Once more Quaid was able only to decrease the force of the blow, not to stop it from scoring. His ears were ringing. “Think about it!” he exclaimed. “If I let go, my end of the cable will slip right over the top!”
Richter looked up, and finally realized that Quaid was right. He held back the knockout kick. He hadn’t been bright enough to see the danger, and wasn’t bright enough to see the solution either. Just as well.
Quaid grabbed Richter’s foot and quickly tied the dangling end of the man’s cable around his ankle. Richter furiously tried to kick him away. “What are you doing?”
Quaid pulled himself up his own cable and unleashed a furious barrage of punches and kicks at Richter, who was surprised to be attacked so foolishly. “Stop it!” he cried. “Stupid!” Just as Quaid had, moments before.