At the Narrow Passage (21 page)

For an instant I wished that there were shells in the cylinder. Given
half a chance, even now, I might be tempted to try to shoot my way out
of here. Then I smiled and handed it back to him.
"If you can get Mica's permission," Scoti said, "I'll see if you can
try it out on the range."
"That might be fun," I said, though again I doubted that Mica trusted
me that much -- enough to let me have a loaded weapon in my hands even
on a target range surrounded by guards.
I just smiled again, and Scoti put the pistol back and started to show
me another of his favorite weapons, an R-4 power pistol from his own Line.
It was two or three days later that Mica dropped his bomb.
We were sitting in his office one morning having coffee, discussing some
of the Paratimes we had been in, when he almost casually mentioned his
Homeline.
"It must be very interesting there," I said.
"Yes, I suppose it is," Mica replied. "You'll have a chance to see for
yourself soon."
"How's that?"
"Next week Trebum and I will be going home to make a progress report to
our governing council. We will be taking you along."
"Oh?" I said, unable to think of anything any more intelligent at the moment.
"Yes," Mica replied slowly. "The council would like to speak with you also.
It isn't often that we get a Timeliner convert."
"How long will I be there?"
"I'm afraid that I cannot say. It will be up to the council. However,
I doubt that you will ever be returning here."
I started to ask why, but decided against it. I knew why. They just didn't
trust me that much, not enough to leave me here this close to my "friends,"
though they trusted me enough not to kill me.
"I trust that you do not find that an unpleasant prospect," he said,
a statement rather than a question.
"No, of course not," I told him. "It should be very interesting."
But I had already made up my mind about what I was going to do.
17
"Red Mobile to Red Leader"
Mica told me that we were going to his Homeline on Friday. I acted on
the Monday before that.
The Monday morning after a solitary breakfast I buzzed Sally's quarters on
the intercom, hoping that I'd catch her before she left. I was lucky. She
was still there.
"Yes, Eric," she said over the intercom.
"Are you busy?"
She paused for a moment before answering. "Well, no. Not really. I have
a few things to do, but nothing urgent. Why?"
"Oh, no reason, really," I said. "I've just got a touch of claustrophobia.
I'd like a chance to get outside for a breath of fresh air."
"We could have gone to the surface yesterday," she said. "There was a
picnic, you know."
"I know, but I didn't feel like it then. How about it? Can you take me up
for a few minutes, just to look around?"
"Okay," she answered at last. "Give me a few minutes. Then I'll come
for you."
"Good. I'll be waiting."
Of course I'd be waiting. I still couldn't even open the door by myself.
It was nearly half an hour later when Sally showed up wearing bright
yellow shorts, halter, and sandals. I was pleased to note the bulge of
the small handgun that was still on her hip under the shorts. I had been
fearful that their trust of me was enough for Sally to have come without
the gun now. It wasn't. Good. I needed that gun.
"Ready to go?" she asked.
"Ready," I answered
We followed the corridors to the stairs and took the stairs up to the
surface, out into the bright springtime morning light. It was almost
summer then all across the Lines.
When the door closed behind us, I took a deep breath of fresh air,
looked up at the cloudless blue sky through the dark pine trees above,
and then looked around and located the hangar off through the trees.
That was my ultimate destination.
"Is there any place in particular you want to go?" Sally asked.
"No," I replied, "let's just walk."
So we walked away from the hangar across the flat countryside through the
pine trees toward a small stream that cut through the forest, making its
way toward the Gulf of Mexico less than fifty miles to the south.
"I'm going to be leaving soon," I said, as I fished into my pocket for
a cigarette.
"I know," Sally replied. "Mica told me."
"In a way I'll hate to leave here. I sort of like it."
"I envy you," she said.
"Envy me. Why?"
"You're getting to visit Mica's Paratime. I've never had a chance.
It must be a wonderful place."
"Oh? You mean you've never been to where they come from?"
"No, very few of us have."
I wondered why, then dismissed the thought. It
might
have some kind
of significance, but I doubted it. And it didn't matter. Not at the
moment. I had no intention of going there with Mica.
"I guess it will be interesting," I said, "but I'd rather stay here."
"What difference does it make to you? This isn't your Homeline. I thought
that one Paratime was as good as another to you."
"Some are better than others. I've come to like it here."
"As a prisoner?"
"I've had freedom that's been a lot worse than this prison, and, hell,
I've got such nice guards."
"You mean like G'lendal and Jonna?" Sally asked, a smile flickering
across her face.
"Yes, like them and you."
"Me? What am I to you, Eric?"
"I don't know, Sally. I just like you.~
"Guilt feelings?"
"Guilt? Oh, for kidnapping you and all? No, not really. Back then you
weren't a person to me. Just a job. I don't have any reason for guilt,
do I?"
"I'm not a person to you now either, Eric. I'm just a turnkey."
"No, more than that."
"I'm just your guard, Eric," she said, an edge to her voice. She had come
to a stop near the base of a huge old pine. "I could never be anything
else."
I turned to look at her, my hands going to her shoulders, memories of
Kristin coming to me, beginning to hate myself for what I was about to
do. "You could be a lot more than that, Sally."
"No, never, Eric."
"Why? Because you're married to Von Heinen? What's he to you?"
"Not Albert," she said, a strange mixture of emotions on her face.
"You know -- you must realize by now that I'm Mica's mistress. I'm . . ."
That's when I acted.
I had never seen Sally draw her hip pistol while wearing those shorts.
She must have had some easy access to it, though I didn't know how and
didn't have time to investigate. I just grabbed the shorts at the waist,
jerked down and forward and hoped that the fabric or the stitches that
held it together would tear. Something gave way.
Sally was as well trained in hand-to-hand combat as any woman I'd ever
met, but fighting was my business, and I was bigger and stronger than
she was. She fought back as I tore off her shorts, grabbed at the small
holster strapped across her now-naked hips, wrapped my fingers around
the weapon's butt and pulled it free. Then I shoved her away, jumped
back and leveled the pistol at her, snapping the safety off. It was a
small automatic of a make I didn't recognize, .22 caliber.
"Hold it, Sally," I grasped.
"Goddamn you!" she cried, on her knees and starting to rise, but then
looking at the weapon aimed at her. "You lying, sneaking bastard.
I trusted you. I . . ."
"I'm sorry, Sally," I said as calmly as I could. "I hate to do this,
but I've still got a job to do."
"You still believe them," she said, her eyes filling with fire and hatred,
and tears. "You still believe those monsters are telling the truth.
You traitor, you filthy . . ."
"That's enough," I said sharply. "I'm doing what I have to do."
"Don't hand me that shit."
"That's not very ladylike."
"Don't mock me, you . . ." What she said next was even less ladylike.
"Get up," I said. "We're going to the hangar."
"You're not stupid enough to think you can steal a boat, are you?
You don't even know how to operate one of ours."
"I don't need to. Now get up and do as I say."
Sally came to her feet, clutching her torn shorts around her waist as well
as she could with one hand, turned in the direction I pointed with the
pistol, started walking.
Well, I thought, I'm into it now. If I don't make it . . . Well, it's a
bullet in the head for old Thimbron Parnassos if I don't pull it off
this time. There'll never be another chance.
Sally did not speak again as we made our way back along the trail toward
the hangar in which the Paratimers kept their sautierboats there on the
surface, hidden from British airships by a thick cover of trees.
In a few minutes we were within sight of the hangar. Exactly as I had
hoped, the big hangar doors were open, and I could see inside. Two of
the alien skudders sat there, the big one and the smaller one, and inside
the hangar, dark against the bright light outside, I could see two men,
gray-clad technicians doing whatever technicians do when they don't have
anything else to do.
"Don't make a sound, Sally," I whispered, knowing that we were still outside
their range of hearing. "If you do . . . I let my voice trail off.
She turned to look at me, hatred still in her eyes, and for an instant
I -- well, damn it, I loved her. I guess that's what it was. And damned if
I knew why. And when that instant was gone, I knew that I couldn't trust her.
She might -- probably would -- yell a warning to the technicians inside
the hangar as soon as we got close enough. And I didn't think I would
be able to kill her if she did.
I'm sorry, Sally
, I said to myself, dropping the pistol, balling my fist
and snapping my knuckles across her jaw in a single motion.
She looked startled for a moment, then collapsed quietly onto the soft,
pine-needled floor of the forest.
I took off her halter, feeling guilty as I undressed her, and used it to
tie her arms crudely to the trunk of a small tree. With my handkerchief
and a strip of her torn shorts I formed a gag and hoped that she would
be found soon. I didn't want her to strangle.
Looking regretfully at her for one last time, wondering whether I'd ever
see her again, I left the now-nude girl behind me and began slipping
through the thinning forest, around the hangar so that I could come up
from the other side.
Standing only inches from the two huge open doors at the hangar's front,
I could hear the two technicians talking, though I couldn't understand
them. They were speaking that French-like language that was common to
the Paratimers.
After a while I decided that I was gaining nothing by delaying. I might
as well go on and do it before I was discovered. So I waited only until I
thought I could pinpoint their locations from their voices, both together,
standing not far from me near the hangar's doors.
Leaping out into the open, turning, and aiming the pistol, I said loudly,
"Hold it! Don't move!"
The two technicians turned to face me, startled expressions on their
faces, words cut off in mid-sentence.
One grabbed at the tool belt he wore, grasping at something that vaguely
resembled a flashlight, but might well have been some sort of laser device
that could be used as a weapon. I pulled the triggr.
The technician staggered backward, grasping his shoulder, blood spurting
between his fingers.
"Don't move again, either of you," I said, wondering if the report of the
tiny pistol was really as loud as it had sounded to me in the stillness
of the surface forest.
"Tie him up," I told the uninjured technician, the one that had explained
to me the workings of their sautierboats a few days before. "And hurry.
I don't have much time."
The startled technician seemed disinclined to argue with the tiny but
effective weapon I held. Without speaking he bound his companion hand
and foot and gagged him with black electrical tape under my supervision.
"Okay. Now drag him over there out of the way," I said. "And don't make
a move toward any of those tools."
When he was finished, he looked back at me fearfully, or rather at the
pistol. He could not seem to take his eyes off it even as he spoke.
"He'll bleed to death," he managed to say. "You hit an artery."
"Do both those boats have radios?" I asked. Right then I couldn't afford
to care if the other technician did bleed to death. I was more concerned
with my own life.
He was nodding.
"Which is the most powerful?"
"N-neither. Both are the same kind."
"Okay. The big one." I gestured toward the larger of the two craft.
The technician didn't ask any questions. He just started across the hangar.
I wasn't foolish enough to believe that I could steal one of their
sautierboats. I had no idea how to operate the controls, and I could
not trust the technician to do anything that complex. The best I could
hope for was one of the radios -- if I could just get a message on the
air and if Kar-hinter still had people monitoring and if I happened to
find the right frequency and if . . .
The technician opened the hatch of the large craft, stood for a moment
waiting for me to tell him what to do.
"Get in," I said.
For an instant I had the same feeling I had had back in the stables of
the villa near Beaugency, back when I was fleeing from the Paratimers in
an Imperial motorcar with Sally and Von Heinen as captives, so long ago
and half a world away. There was the sensation of another presence in
the hangar, and out of the corner of my eye I caught the impression of
a figure standing back deep in the shadows at the far end of the hangar.
I spun toward the image, leveling the small pistol, but when my eyes
focused in the shadows, there was nothing there. Had there ever been?
I went on into the boat, feeling a strange chill on my back. Ghosts?
Inside the boat I recognized the controls as being basically similar
to those of the craft that had brought me to Staunton, what I had seen
of its control panel. The radio transceiver was easy enough to locate,
though the lettering on the controls was foreign to me.
"Okay," I said, "tell me what does what."
The technician looked at me for a moment, perhaps wondering what he could
get away with, then, gazing at the pistol, seemed to decide that he'd
better play it straight and nodded. "This -- this is the on-off switch.
The receiver and the transmitter operate on the same frequency. That's
controlled by this knob."
"What does that dial indicate?"
"Megahertz. Vernier control here and these -- these buttons will select
preselected channels."