The View from the Imperium (27 page)

“Plet, I’m about to emerge into traffic. Is there an alternative that will not put me into traffic? I am weary of annoying heavily armed babysitting robots.”

“Yes, sir!” Plet’s voice rose over static in my ear. “Stay on this corridor for another thirty meters. I can guide you through accessways. Listen carefully. You are getting out of range. Left, third left, right, right, down cargo tube four levels, left, long corridor, last door at the end. Do you have that? I will repeat it until team B rejoins you in the ballroom.”

Bless her efficiency. I was good at learning trivia and song lyrics on one hearing, but between alarm and static, I was uncertain. I listened, attempting to picture the route, mindful of the consequences should I fail. The next time, a nanibot’s wild shots would certainly do to me what the pirates had so far failed to accomplish.

Behind me, the movement-controlled lights flashed on and off, causing the shadow thrown ahead of me to strobe. I glanced back. Four-legged crewbeings swarmed after me. They were much closer than I had anticipated. Two Geckos passed their slower comrades and were in danger of catching up with me. Their voices echoed in the stinking hallway. Heedless of the pain now wracking the entire right side of my body, I summoned all my speed and ran.

The narrow alley into which Plet directed me had a floor that was both slippery and sticky. I only hoped that the uncertain footing would cause my pursuers to fare worse than I did. My boots alternately slid or caught in the dark green goo. I cannoned off the walls more than once.

Suddenly, a hand seemed to reach out of the darkness to my left. I flinched, then my eyes focused. It was not a hand, but a metal gate of some kind, left partway open by its last user. My approach made its circuitry wake up and close the rest of the way. I was unlucky enough to get caught in its sweep. I dodged, or thought I had, but it came out and struck me across the midsection.

“Oof!” Inelegant, I admit, but I hadn’t time to come up with a clever outburst. My ribs hurt! To my dismay, the license was knocked out of my hand.

The metal clattered upon the soiled floor. I looked back. My pursuers heard the noise, and picked up their pace. I dropped to my knees and fumbled in the dark for the square of metal, collecting a good deal of the stinking slime on my hands in the process. At last my fingertips met the edge. I scraped it up with my fingernails and clapped it to my side. Conveniently, the ambient sludge helped it adhere to my uniform tunic. I would not lose it again.

“Status!” I barked into my pickup. My voice sounded hoarse.

“Wait a minute,” said Chan. “Juhrman stayed behind in group B. I’m listening to him. I’ll be back to you in a moment.”

Plet’s voice came thinly through a wave of static. “The crew is nearly on top of you, sir. The alley will widen out in a moment, then you have a choice of directions.”

I scanned my surroundings. A bright yellow square loomed out of the darkness.

“I see an access sign! I can turn right out into the main road.”

“No! I can keep you out of the thoroughfare all the way to the hotel entrance, if you follow my instructions.” Her voice cracked, and I realized that I might lose her to the interference.

“Tell me, quickly,” I pleaded.

A hot red burst of plasma splattered a light fixture near me. The Geckos were much faster than their companions, and were at last on my tail. But I was still faster than they, and fear gave me afterburners.

“In one hundred meters, you will see the lift downward . . .”

My attention to the voice in my ear must have caused me to slow down in a darkened portion of the corridor. A weight landed upon my back and bore me to the sticky floor. I guessed by the weight it was a Gecko. We rolled together. A second body, as light as the first, joined the fray. I knew from wrestling with my shipmates that impact to their sensitive earspots could incapacitate them. They knew it, too, striving to keep my hands away from the sides of their heads. They knew, too, that knocking my nose in would incapacitate me. We flailed around the floor, trying to slap one another in the face.

I felt a hard mass ram into my hip. I felt downward and wrenched the pistol from the Gecko’s shipsuit pocket. It fought to get it back, scratching at my face and arms, but I forced my way to my feet and held it too high for the being to reach. You may call it wasted effort and time, but I dialed the setting back from kill to stun before I blasted its owner in the face. He dropped. I walked my shots to flank the second one, and succeeded in knocking her weapon out of her hand. I raised the gun to render her unconscious, but she was too quick. She dashed back into the darkness. The footsteps of the others were much nearer. I turned and ran, tucking the gun into my belt.

With Plet’s voice in my ear, I ran toward a door through which issued a pink light. An open-sided pressure tube there acted as an elevator. It was an old-fashioned type, but those that still ran were hard to get rid of once they had been installed, because removing the tunnel often caused the collapse of the surrounding structure, so most edifices, like old colonies, that had them kept them running, but did not use them as much as better and safer structures like elevators and moving stairs. Steeling myself, I took a flying leap for it. I needed to penetrate the outer stream, which was at least two meters thick in one of these contraptions, to the center core, which bore the rider or cargo downward.

My heart bulged upward into my throat as passed through the strong updraft and was caught half a floor upward by the equally powerful downdraft. I needed to count four floors. Two Croctoids, Growteing and one other, hurtled out of the darkness and plunged into the stream, hands outstretched for my throat and the precious license. I flinched backwards, and fell into the updraft with them tumbling against me. We were battered against the walls by our momentum. I was swept ten floors up in the outer stream until I fought my way back into the central column of rushing air that snatched me and dragged me downward. The Croctoids were swept upward several more floors before they swam into the downdraft to follow me. Their eyes gleamed down at me in the sickly pink light. They did not dare take a shot at me here lest they cause an explosion in the pressure tube that would kill all of us, but they shouted threats and demands. I held onto the license, attached firmly to my uniform, my only hope.

I faked jumping into open doorways twice. I lost one of the Croctoids on the floor immediately below my target. Captain Growteing stayed with me, but I still had an advantage over him: he did not know where I was going. After several dizzying ups and downs, I sprang out of the pressure tube. My first steps on a plascrete floor were as unsteady as a newborn lamb’s, but luckily the residue from the corridor floor on the bottom of my boots helped my feet stick tightly. I regained my equilibrium swiftly and began again to run. With the Croctoid captain’s angry shouts behind me, I opened up some distance.

Chapter 15

It must have been a shock to the well-coiffed employees at the opulent check-in desk when I burst out of the wall looking like a tramp that had taken an accidental ride in a garbage scow. They stared at me, with the correct expression of haughty disapproval. I straightened my back and adjusted my cap which was, miraculously, still on my head.

“Where is Ms. Lutsen?” I demanded.

Fortunately, the lady was mere steps away, behind the thin partition. She appeared and beheld me with some horror.

“Lord Thomas!” she exclaimed.

“I apologize for my attire,” I burst out, “but it is imperative that we make use of your ballroom again.” A roar shook the wall through which I had just emerged. “Urgently. As in this very moment.”

“I don’t know if we can accommodate you,” Ms. Lutsen said, looking elegantly worried. “We have another party coming in two hours. We need to get the facility cleaned and set up . . .”

“You are too kind,” I said, with a bow and a smile, as if she had said yes. I looked around the elegant foyer. A heavy antique sideboard would buy me a moment or two more. I seized upon it and began to drag it toward the door. Its feet screamed a protest on the shining floor. “And by the way, I suggest you evacuate the hotel. At least this floor. And any rooms that border the ballroom. At once.”

“But, Lord Thomas!” the banquet manager protested.

“I will give you an explanation later,” I said, setting my burden in place with a thump, “but I would suggest you remove yourselves now. Lock the front door. Tell everyone that there is a leak.”

“What kind of leak?” demanded a young man with swooping locks of enameled black hair.

“Anything that will prevent them from trying to get in until this is settled,” I said. “It’s a naval matter. Please excuse me.” I broke away, hoping I had not been too rude, but time was fleeting.

Ms. Lutsen must have given her consent, because the ballroom doors opened for me. I hit the emergency control to slam them shut. They wouldn’t lock—such a thing was not permitted in a residential facility in use for fear of trapping living beings in an emergency—but I needed a few minutes unobserved so that the pirates could not see what I was doing. I flew to the control panel. I had enjoyed playing with the floors and walls of the modular structure, but now I needed to concentrate in deadly seriousness. In my mind I constructed a living maze, one that would keep on changing until I could trap the pirates into a small inner chamber without doors or windows. I began to program my ideas into the panel, setting timers on each successive change. If only Parsons would return! Once I had my program in place, I tried signaling him again. Nothing. Where was he?

I heard a harrowing crash and an outcry from the lobby. Growteing had burst through the barrier. The others could not be far behind.

“You softskin, I will tear your head off and use it as a handball!”

I shouted into my communicator. “Chan, Plet, where are you?”

“About seventy meters, sir!” Plet replied, her voice sounding stronger than before. I was relieved.

“Right,” I said. “My maze is based upon the Keight garden party design. When you get in here, go in as far as you can, and turn right. Then left. Then right, then left. Keep to that pattern. Doors will disappear; walls will change. If a staircase presents itself, take it, but do not vary the pattern.”

“Yes, sir!” they chorused.

The Croctoid came roaring toward me. He was so slow that I had to wait in the entrance to my trap.

“I will tear you apart, human! Give back the license!”

I sneered at him, and gave him my best derisive laugh.

“No, I think I’ll have it made into a backdrop for my waste disposer,” I said. “It will improve my aim.” I waved the square of metal in his direction. He raised his pistol. I fled into the labyrinth. Red light exploded behind me. Gobbets of plastic flew from the wall frame. I heard his heavy footsteps and laboring breath.

“Team A is here, sir,” Plet said. I heard the sound of battle around her. Grunts and cries of pain rang through my earpiece. “Juhrman said he sent the wounded to the infirmary. A couple of constables finally showed up. He gave them five prisoners, and he’s on his way. We order you to surrender!—not you, sir.”

“Understood,” I said. I wished I could see what they were doing. I longed once again for the heads-up display of my helmet.

It was time to rejoin my troops. The Croctoid must be dealt with first.

I had had to go slow to avoid contact with the much larger and better-armed pirate, but now it was time to allow him to get lost in the maze. At the next turning, I flattened myself against the inner wall and called for the Optique. At my command, the hovering camera eye flashed short video clips. I had to select one in a hurry. I had no good video of me running, but I had had the camera take footage of me reviewing the troops. I selected a short clip in which I was marching smartly away from it. I ordered the camera to crop the image to conceal the line of troops and increase the playback speed to a quadruple-quick march. That should be just fast enough to stay ahead of the Croctoid. I had no time to drop in the image of the license. I just hoped that he believed I still had it, and his crew’s key to freedom was to catch me and regain it.

“Attention, pirate captain!” I shouted, and sent the Optique on its way. I held my breath and willed myself invisible.

My dorsal view bloomed upon the wall adjacent to my hiding place. The pirate let out a roar and followed “me” as I seemed to dash to the left. He lumbered past my place of concealment without remarking at all upon my presence. In a moment, I was alone, all without firing a shot. And, just in time, one of the dark blue wall segments rose up, blocking any return from that leftward corridor. I ran out to aid my troops.

In the anteroom that I had left open, Team A of a somewhat depleted militia attempted to surround and disarm the remainder of the pirates. The enormous Solinian was flanked by both volunteer soldiers in armored suits. It was an uneven battle, however. The ancient pressure suits were in poor condition, and the Solinian fought for his freedom. He had wrenched the left arm off one, leaving a skinny human limb in khaki canvas sticking out and flapping awkwardly. The other golem had wrapped its metal arms around the creature’s neck and was trying to render it unconscious. It was refusing to cooperate. It raked its claws down the metal sleeve at its throat, creating a noise like a chalkboard’s squeak. Everyone in the room cringed. The enormous reptilian gave a heave, and the battle suit went flying. It landed on the ground meters away with a crash of metal and lay still. I worried that the operator had been killed, but in a moment, it began to stir and attempt to rise to its feet. The Solinian shook off the second battle suit and ran away.

“Get him!”

Plet, with Rous and Bailly in her wake, went after the Solinian with the light of battle in her eyes. It seemed to have had enough of her, and dodged her around the walls. It shot at them, leaving burning holes in the wall and floors. Plet continued her relentless pursuit.

Other soldiers were facing a running battle—and I meant that literally—versus a trio of Croctoids. The reptilian pirates blasted at my uniformed cohort, missing almost every time. My soldiers paused to shoot, then scurried out of the line of fire. The Crocs were starting to sway. I hoped they would fall over before their reinforcements arrived.