Charon (40 page)

 
Ku needed no prompting; he was already on the roof of the cave and working. I saw a small laser drill snap into place, and, soon after, he was affixing a ring to the roof with
an instant
-bonding cement. Darva and I, being the largest, carried the miscellaneous packs, and she was already ahead of me. The rope, made from some really nasty jungle vines in Koril's shops, tested out at over 500 kilos. For our sake I hoped it still did.

 
Kindel was nearest me, and I whispered to her, "What would we do without Ku?"

 
"Why, we'd turn another of us into something like him," she replied matter-of factly.

 
"Oh," was all I could manage, and turned back to watch -the work. The
system was simple enough—grab
the rope and swing across the pressure-sensitive floor plate to the other side. It wasn't quite as easy as all that though—the roof- of the cave was less than three meters high, while the plate was four across. Since the rope couldn't touch the
plate, that
meant you needed good speed and a slight jump at the end. It would be tricky indeed.

 
It was a nervous eternity as each of us made our crossing, but we were all trained professionals. We had only one close call, and no other problems. I made it very easily, almost to my surprise, and the thought struck me that, if Kara were a double agent, primed to betray us, she could do so very convincingly now. She didn't, though, demonstrating that nice timing and power she tried so hard to hide.

 
In fact, only the tiny Kindel needed several swings until she felt confident enough to let go, and, even then, only fast action by the Ku overhead pushed her the last few precious centimeters.

 
We all waited while Ku used Ms little laser tool to cut the knot and retrieve the rope, then return, cut off and bring back the ring also. Again, anyone who passed by would have to be looking for something to find any sign that we had been here.

 
Much of the rest of the tunnel was arranged with other traps, some easier to spot than others. A few were actually powered and thus not active, but most were basic, mechanical types that were bad enough. Each caused a little heart trouble but each had its answer in our packs, and none deterred us.

 
We found countless blind junctions too, and in each we had to rely on Koril's old experience and the probing sense of the top sores. Approaching one, though, we were held up by Koril from entering. We had reached areas close to the Castle—and now we were going to face the real problems.

 
For one thing,
this
junction had traffic; a fan- amount by the sound of it.
Troopers and maintenance personnel pushing dollies of various things to and fro, or so it seemed.
There was never a lag of more than a minute or so between such sounds, hardly enough time to enter, determine the right path, and move on through.

 
Koril was still deeply in thought when the power returned. A band of light came alive all up and down the corridors, illuminating us dimly but completely—and illuminating the junction as well. We moved quickly back into the tunnel, just in time to miss four red-clad people emerging from another tunnel mouth on the run, pushing a large yellow cart filled with cases of something or other across the open space, and into another opening. They never glanced in our direction.

 
"Well, we made it a lot farther than I thought, thanks to the tabarwind," Koril sighed. "Now the real fun begins. We're less than fifty meters from the bottom floor of the Castle right now. These tunnels lead to the art storage rooms, the precious metals rooms, and the like. That one to the right, there, at
two o'clock
, leads to the Castle." He stopped, and we all froze as yet another team came through, this time with what sounded like a powered vehicle of some kind. As the last sounds were receeding, he continued.

 
"The booby traps have got to be down by now. I'm not sure anybody ever expected anyone to get this far undetected. I'm not sure
I
ever did, I've had an education in security myself these past hours. Now, I know you're all tired but we have to push on. I'm sure all this fuss is over the attack that has surely been launched by now, and all hell is breaking loose. That means they'll be coming up or down here any moment now. We can't stay here and we can't go on. I think—"

 
Just as he said that last a small powered tractor towing a trailer entered the Junction point, paused a moment, then turned our way and started right toward us.

 
Pistols were out in a moment, and Koril hardly had time to hiss "Don't miss!" as the thing chugged into view. There were only two people in the cab, both dressed in maintenance red. We shot them so fast I can't even describe what they looked like. In another moment Ku dropped from the roof into the open cab, kicked the corpses out of the way, and brought the tractor to a stop.

 
"Quickly!"
Koril said.
"Park.
Darva.
Kaigh.
You're the biggest and strongest Get those crates off this thing!"

 
We hustled to do as instructed. The damned tilings were heavy, but not beyond any two of us, and we had them off the trailer and to the side of the little chugging train in a couple of minutes. During that time we nervously ignored other traffic sounds behind us. We were just far enough around the bend, we hoped, not to be noticed—unless somebody else wanted to come up our way.

 
Koril wasted no time on sorcery. He opened his laser pistol to wide scan and disintegrated the crates to white powder, taking the risk that the electronic springlike sound would be unheard or obscured by traffic noise. Quickly we climbed into the back trailer. Ku then stuck the small service cab into reverse, backed out carefully into the junction point, made the turn,
then
moved into the tunnel that headed for the Castle. We never knew what was in those crates.

 
Ku drove like a madman and hardly hesitated when we approached some troopers and maintenance personnel on foot. To my surprise they just stepped against the wall and let us by without a glance. A little further on, we passed a similar tractor going the other way. Ku waved, so did the red-clad driver of the other vehicle, and we passed with a few centimeters to spare.

 
Koril laughed out loud.
"The fools!
They figure we're troopers. Well, we are! Weapons at the ready! This is gonna get hairy in a minute!"

 
With that, we entered the bottom floor of the Castle, a feuge open area supported by rock pillars. Hundreds of men and women clad in red or black were there, and a number of vehicles and trailers were about

 
We pulled in between some painted lines on the floor and Ku brought us to a stop. Koril, brimming with confidence, winked. "Now I'll show you why bureaucracy is so evil." He jumped down, bolstered his pistol, and walked briskly towards a gold-braided black-clad trooper, an officer of some kind and by his
wo
a powerful man.

 
The former Lord of the Diamond walked right up to him, started talking to him, and the trooper nodded, then pointed and said something back. Koril saluted and returned to us, hardly suppressing a grin. "Okay—out! We don't have to walk up. We're going to take Lift 4."

 
A little numbly we complied, and followed him across the busy floor to the doors of a huge open lift. I wasn't used to such a primitive device, but remembered that Koril had said these were moved by counterweight, not by any electrical power. They had to be—otherwise in a power outage they would be useless.

 
We stood there, looking about nervously, not quite believing what we were doing and feeling we stuck out like a sore thumb in our green uniforms. I couldn't stand it any more than the rest, and eased up to Koril. "All right—how the hell did you manage this?"

 
He smiled and winked. "I just walked up to the chief operations officer there, told him we were a special security patrol ordered to defensive positions, and asked him for the quickest way to our station." "And he told
your
"Sure.
Why not?"

 
I wasn't the only one shaking my head in wonder as the big lift descended, stopped, and form-fitted itself neatly into the indentation for it in the floor. There were a number of hand carts on it, mostly empty, with security troopers and maintenance personnel on them, all of whom paid us no mind whatsoever. I admit, though, that at least I, and almost certainly most of us,
were
close to being nervous wrecks at this point. Still, this was just the sort of stunt / might improvise if this were
my
old stamping grounds. I knew that our greatest danger until we got off wasn't from these faceless men and women but from somebody's nerve springing in our group and giving us away.

 
When the lift was cleared we stepped uneasily on, only to find that several troopers also came up, pushing carts with cases of what looked like ammunition for the projectile weapons and, possibly, laser pistol power packs. No sooner were they on than a loud gong sounded overhead, and we started up, one floor at a time. The system was obviously designed for slow ascent and descent. It would stop on every floor no matter what.

 
The next floor, and most of the others, were not open spaces like the warehouse level but instead opened on access corridors that went down a few meters, then branched off to the right and left. Security guards were visible on each level, wearing special color-coded passes which, I was acutely and suddenly aware, we did
not
have.

 
The troopers with us didn't seem to notice, hut when one cart got off at the fifth level the security men
did
check badges. At the seventh level when the rest exited, badges were given an even greater scrutiny.
Alone and rising, I shouted to Koril, "Badges!"

 
He nodded and patted his pistol in its holster. It was pretty dear that we'd have to take his lead and use brute force—and, once we did, all hell would break loose. As we cleared Level 9 he whispered, "Draw weapons and shoot as soon as you're ablel"

 
At Level 10, the topmost point you could go on these lifts without full security clearance, eight armed security guards waited for us with very ugly-looking projectile weapons. Even if they didn't suspect us, and they probably did, they would be ready to shoot anyone on the lift at the slightest provocation.

 
As our heads came up over the floor and into the clear, I shouted, "Wait! Don't shoot!" The guards naturally hesitated at that, and that was all we needed. As our shoulders cleared we opened wide rapid fire with the laser pistols. None of them had a chance against such concentrated fire.

 
"Everybody off—fast!"
Koril shouted.
"When they don't give the go-ahead signal this thing!!
drop
like a stone!" We needed no other urging; the last of us was off before the lift leveled with the floor—and just in time, too. Apparently the guards above had the locking mechanism, and with no guard to throw it the big platform rumbled and dropped immediately from view.

 
Kaigh looked back at the gaping hole and shook his head.
"Close."
We all turned our attention back to Koril, who was looking around critically.

 
Finally he said, "This is the primary guard floor for the upper levels. There'll be some fifty, sixty people here even if the rest were drawn off by the outside attack. I doubt, though, if we could walk through to the main stair without getting slaughtered. Park, Darva, Kira—stay in the middle of our circle. No firing even if fired upon. Bluff, bravado, and conventional weapons will no longer get us anywhere."

 
We knew what he meant and quickly formed up, allowing the sores to surround us. But neither Darva nor I put down our weapons. In the last analysis, something was better than nothing. Still, we'd gone through this procedure, and for now, I was certainly willing to let the pros do what they did best
What
bothered me most was that what they were going to do was form an actual circle as we moved.
Should anyone in the circle fall, breaking contact, one of us would have to complete the connection and quickly.
Otherwise, instead of the pooled power of the highly trained Class 1 sores assembled by KorQ, there would be only individuals—possibly capable of protecting themselves, but hardly me.

 
The circle was formed quickly, but we didn't start right away. The concentration required to
Tint
the
wa
of so many powerful minds was enormous. Darva, Kira, and I looked around nervously, and I know they were wondering why our unseen enemy hadn't charged. I could see why with no difficulty. The entry corridor dead-ended about twenty meters in, and you had to turn either right or left. From the diagrams I knew we had to go left to get to where we had to go—and so would any defenders. With the lift behind us, troopers on all lower floors, and safety seals in place above, we couldn't retreat, not even climb up or down, nor could we remain for long or that lift would return with really nasty goodies just for us. Any defender would naturally prefer to stake out a route of inevitable march by an invader than attack in this confined space, where we had good shots ourselves.