Page 22 (1/2)
MacIntosh turned his set on "full"
"Hold it!" he yelled "Stand down, roundside and lacked the skills forin the axis area of the Orbiter He spun around at the voice and let go his handhold The eway toward MacIntosh The un as he flailed for balance and Mack scooped it up as he sailed by
Mack reached Spud as he started co around
"I heard theh a mouthful of blood "I pulled the alarm because I didn&039;t knohat else to do"
"Good thinking, Spud," he said "Get a suit on in case we break vacuueway as Spud suited up, and close behind the In spite of their bulky suits the squad race that MacIntosh envied He looked around for the owner of the lasgun, but the man had disappeared The hatch to the studio reed his communicator directly into Spud&039;s headset
"Beatriz knows the drill," he said "She&039;ll suit up"
"Does she know the visual &039;all clear&039; code?"
MacIntosh nodded
"She knows it, but I&039;ll bet she knows better than to use it"
It took two things to prevent a sealed-off fire area fronal "all clear" to the Orbiter conal to the computer Since the sensors in the studio undoubtedly reported no sign of fire, the co that a human had inspected the scene and declared it clear Meanwhile, the suspect area remained sealed off, accessible only by fire personnel
The intercoh sixteen Vacuum instillation in three minutes Vacuum in three minutes Full pressure suit mandatory in these area"
The electronic device that the fire squad used to enter sealed hatches didn&039;t work on the first try, or the second MacIntosh plugged his set into the bulkhead receptacle and tried direct contact with the studio
Spud plugged into MacIntosh
"Anything?" he asked
MacIntosh shook his head "Static They&039;re just no"
On the third try the hatch sprang aside The fire squad rushed in and MacIntosh shouldered hiun as best he could He was glad he did
Beatriz was the only one who had ed to don a suit She stood to the side of the hatch and grabbed MacIntosh as he raced through The moood grip on a handhold so they both stayed put
The others fumbled with the seals of their suits, surprised at the suddenness of the fire squad&039;s entry One of the newcomers rabbed in flight by a firefighter and his partner restled him to a handhold and restrained hiun and they stayed put
Mack&039;s squad finished their sweep of the room in less than a nal back to the computer The intercoear Beatriz beat him to it
"They killed my crew," she shouted "They killed your security squad and they have weapons back there in the lockers" One of the firelighters sailed to the back of the studio to search out the weapons cache
"Hold these men," MacIntosh ordered, "and hand out whatever weapons they have, we&039;re likely to need thehters used various lines and straps from their pockets to truss up Leon and his two ee The fire squad lived and worked in it every day, but MacIntosh still had to ad captives in tow
Beatriz hugged hih the added bulk of the vacuu we could do that under other circu and held her close
"There are ether My guess is that their leader, Captain Brood, is with the OMC"
"Spud, you heard?"
"Yes, Dr Mack"
"All this action&039;s going to bring somebody down here Seal off axis sector yellow, code adht seal a few of theive us time to deal with the rest of them"
Spud activated the nearest console and completed the order in a blink
MacIntosh ear "There&039;s a big storage locker across the passageway that&039;s e lab next to Current Control If you can find any weapons fro them I want your best tunnel rats, as many as you can muster"
"Aye, Coroundsiders, sir You sa cluee and vacuu Beatriz&039;s hand, "and strategy Let&039;sto the flame are devoured by it, you who cleave to it are yet alive
- Zohar: The Book of Splendor
Spider Nevi hoped that Flattery was getting a hu at the hands of the rabble, because Nevi was certainly getting a hu out here at the hands of the kelp He&039;d spotted Zentz floating on his back, only the whites of his eyes visible, thestrand of kelp wrapped his oon
Lucky for Zentz that he&039;d had the presence of mind to inflate the collar of the suit It kept his head and shoulders on the surface, though fat as he was his body floated nicely enough without it Lucky, too, that Nevi had hit the vine quickly and on the first shot He had Zentz all the way back to the foil before he felt the seethe of kelp anger on his heels Zentz appeared to be breathing
It would&039;ve been so ht need him A live body is a lotfor sure, he was getting out of reach of the kelp One zoh The foil started a slow spin, and Nevi swore under his breath
It&039;s channeling us into its reach
He ed to secure Zentz&039;s collar with a line from the aft hatchway and pulled him aboard the foil He used a boathook to brush off pieces of kelp frond that clung to the unconscious Zentz
The whole situation had passed beyond the ridiculous for Nevi, noas simply comic It didn&039;t matter to him whether Flattery stayed in power or not Whoever was up there would need Spider Nevi and his services, and Nevi enjoyed that position It was like having three or four good chess moves already set while the opponent was in check Well, it was time Flattery learned his worth
Send me out here, will he?
Zentz had been kelped, and the auto off to who-knohere They didn&039;t keep hiainst rescue At sixty-five kilos, it took Nevi a while to wrestle the nearly one hundred kilos of Zentz inside the foil and harness him into his couch He didn&039;t knohy he bothered, except that it would give Flattery so to play with if they didn&039;t come back with Crista Galli and Ozette
Nevi quickly oon and prepared for vertical takeoff It would eat upgrabbed by that kelp stand
He punched in the automatic VTO sequence and all of the power of the foil kicked hi on a blade of grass until they were a safe hundred ht-and-level and turned the foil loose A routine ten- had turned into nearly an hour&039;s delay, and Nevi couldn&039;t afford to waste another blink
He listened to the radio and couldn&039;t make heads or tails of the situation back at the Preserve He&039;d tried to raise Flattery on their dedicated channel, but no one keyed hih and he shook his head in wonder
What idiot talked Flattery into depth-charging the foil we&039;re hunting?
He snapped off the radio and relaxed his grip on the controls The afternoon turbulence didn&039;t sit well on his sto to do besides listen to Zentz breathe through his drool He kept the yellow arrow on his viewscreen pointed toward the green coordinates set down by the overflights
He could tell, by the way Zentz squirmed in the copilot&039;s couch, that the Chief of Securitya sneer at the
Chief Breach of Security, he thought Chief of Insecurity
Nevi had to adainst the increasing hostility of the villagers for nearly a year A- this Crista Galli and her Shadow playurgled
Zentz&039;s eyes ild, the pupils dilating and constricting on both sides, dancing to soe rhyth about sootten the foil back in the air
"Crista Galli, kelp gone crazy," Zentz went on, "giant hylighter grab whole foi"
"That&039;s hocus-pocus, and it&039;s in your head," Nevi said
He knew Zentz couldn&039;t hear him, but it made Nevi feel better His voice was calm and flat, a practiced calm that paid off whenever he had to ith Zentz He knew it gave Zentz the creeps, and that always gave Nevi the edge He wondered whether it would give Zentz the creeps in his drea that ainst the restraints in his co the coastline nearly emptied his sto the kelp&039;s subways, particularly during afternoon storms, but today speed was critical The cat had played the ht about their foil Who knehat the kelp had shown hiot loose afoot in this country theydasher bait Ozette didn&039;t strike him as the survival type Nevi knew that Flattery needed both of them alive - for now For nohat Flattery needed Nevi needed, and he didn&039;t want to get so coot it
Zentz needs the question hter - ould contact with that thing do to Crista Galli?
Or whatabout those daave even Nevi the creeps Nobody could farm the open country like that without some kind of protection He wanted to knohat that protection was Or who They kept one jump ahead of Flattery and the dashers - accomplishments that captured Nevi&039;s personal respect