“Thou dost push thy luck,” he muttered, not responding physically.
“We are the same, she and I. I feel her emotion—and that emotion is for you rather than Mach. I never quite figured out what was wrong, until you told me of the situation in Phaze. I see now that I was trying for Mach only nominally; it was you I really wanted. Now I am helping you to save your lover, and I believe—”
“Sork,” the android’s hand said. “What report?”
Bane used his ability to activate the return connection. “She says she just wants a change from Proton men, sir,” he said in the android’s voice. “She says it is routine.”
“What else?”
“That it is none of my business, sir.”
There was a dry laugh. “All right, let her talk to me.” Bane held up the android’s limp hand. “He wishes to talk to thee,” he said.
“All right. Tan sir,” she said, grimacing. “And what does my Citizen twin brother require of me now, sir?”
“A straight answer,” Tan’s voice snapped. “Why are you leaving the planet without notifying me?”
“I forgot. Citizen sir,” she said, not bothering to conceal the malice. She resented the fact that he had gotten the Citizenship instead of her. “Now are you going to let me board, sir?”
“I don’t think so. There’s something funny about—“ He paused, evidently making a connection. “Thee? The android wouldn’t have said that!”
Oops! Bane had given himself away!
“You must have misheard,” Tania said. “Bane’s in with the amoeba wench, plumbing her protoplasm with his metal rod.”
“One moment,” Tan snapped. Bane knew he was putting in a priority call to the suite, to see who answered. He also knew that Nepe, in his likeness, would answer and cover for him.
Sure enough, soon Tan spoke again. “He’s there, all right, looking mad about being interrupted. But I distinctly heard a ‘thee.’ Who are you with?’
Tania covered for him again. “All right, if you must know: I managed to talk a man into going with me. I—you know, Phaze, the way I—I’ve got him made up like Bane, and told him to talk like—”
“I doubt it,” Tan said coldly. “More likely you found a way to coerce Bane into coming with you so you could seduce him, and Agape is emulating him at their suite. How the hell you got her to cooperate I can’t guess. I won’t have it; we need him here. Permission to depart the planet is denied; return immediately to the office, and bring him with you. We shall get to the bottom of this.”
Tania glanced at Bane. Her brother had leaped to an apt conclusion, with one key error!
“Damn!” she said. “I hear and obey. Citizen Tan sir! But this matter is not finished.”
“Agreed,” he said, with an inflection that made her wince. They stepped out of the booth. “Methinks we need a distraction,” Bane said. “There be a few minutes yet till the ship launch. An he rethink the ploy—”
“And it is time for me to make my move,” Tania said. “This will quickly unravel. If I know my brother, he will not depend on my sense of sibling duty; he’ll send a competent force to arrest me—and you. Pull out your stops, robot; this is the time.”
“Aye, wench,” he agreed. “Follow!”
They ran to the nearest service exit to the takeoff ramp. Bane used his ability to make the door open for him as it would for a machine servitor. Beyond was a chamber in which the service machines were parked: huge forklifts, dozers and ramp cleaners. Bane went to one of the last: a machine taller than a man, with s scalable cockpit, and nozzles and brushes all around. “Climb in!” he told her, as he made the cockpit dome lift open.
“How?” she asked, halting before the monstrous caterpillar tread of the thing. It offered little purchase for a human being. Normally these machines were remote-controlled; the cockpit was there only in case a man should be assigned.
“I’ll boost thee!” He caught her by knee and upper thigh and lifted her up so that she could scramble onto the top of the tread.
“Goose me again, why don’t you,” she muttered as his hand fell away from her thigh. But she made it to the cockpit and climbed in.
Bane followed. He zeroed in on the machine’s control circuitry, and locked off the remote input. Now he alone con trolled it. He studied its mechanisms.
“Get going!” Tania cried, jammed into the tiny cockpit beside him. “They’ll be here any minute!” Bane knew that. But he wanted to be certain of the cleaner’s potential. He had chosen this machine because it most resembled an old-fashioned tank. Properly directed, it could defend itself, and could travel beyond the dome.
A group of androids burst into the chamber. “Here they are!” Tania exclaimed. “They’ve got stunners!”
He had anticipated as much. “Get comfortable,” he said grimly. “It may be a hard ride.”
“I can’t get comfortable here! There’s a gearstick poking my bottom.”
“Lucky gearshift,” he murmured, as the machine lurched out to meet the androids.
One of them fired. The shot was invisible, and was evidently deflected by the metal and plastic framework of the machine, for there was no effect. Still, this luck would not hold; he had to eliminate the menace.
He aimed a nozzle and fired. Foam squirted out to blast the androids. The force of it was formidable; it knocked them off their feet. Bubbles enclosed them, and they gesticulated wildly as they fought for good air to breathe.
“What is that stuff?” Tania asked admiringly.
“Merely light detergent. But methinks it would sting if it got in the eyes.”
Indeed, several androids were rubbing their eyes. None were trying to use their stunners. This group had been effectively defeated.
But more would come, this time better prepared. Not enough time had passed to allow for the ship taking off. “Me thinks we had better give them aught to ponder,” he said, guiding the vehicle to the service entrance.
“Robots!” she cried, pointing.
That was what he had feared. Detergent foam would not stop those!
So he charged them as they passed through the door. They were machines, but they were no match for the mass of the vehicle; they dived aside as he smashed into the door, and broke it in, along with a large segment of wall. Human and android people screamed. Tania grunted as she was bounced against the cockpit dome and back into Bane. Her knees were now jammed against his belly, and she clung to his neck for support. Her hair was in wild disarray, but she was smiling. This was her kind of mayhem!
But already the robots were righting themselves and orienting their weapons. Bane touched a lever, and water blasted out in a circular sheet, horizontally, sweeping them all off their feet again. “Rinse cycle,” he murmured to the top of Tania’s head, which was jammed against his right shoulder. “May short out some of those weapons.”
Then he maneuvered the vehicle around and away from the smashed wall, retreating. “Takeoff!” he said gladly.
“This thing flies?” she demanded, astonished.
“The ship be launched,” he explained. “Now it be safe to pass its ramp. I wanted to interfere not, before.”
“Figures,” she agreed.
Some robots were coming after them. Bane tried his third weapon, the sander. Powdery sand blasted out, and the big brushes extended, whipping it into a dust-storm frenzy, in tended to scour away the worst runway buildup of grime or old paint.