The Flying Eyes (18 page)

Then Iverson's face was before him, and the old man was hacking away at the arm with a pair of scissors. Watery blood spilled down the front of Linc's shirt and he was free. Together, he and Iverson ran the row, pounding and slashing at the arms and the Eyes, closing their ears to the screams of the dying and the agony that engulfed them. Men were falling. Others were being led away. What had gone wrong?

A staccato barking swung him round. Ichabod was jumping up and down in the hall, his teeth snapping shut on air as he tried for an arm and missed his mark.

“What the devil!” Linc cried out. Before the exclamation was finished, his attention went past Ichabod, and there coming up behind the dog was Kelly, swiveling in stark fear, one hand over her mouth, as she dodged the arms and Eyes that swarmed among the men.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Their eyes met. Hers showed pure panic, and he started for her, pushing men and Zine arms aside, weaving in and out. A Zine hand emerged from the wall beside him and grabbed for his sleeve, but he slapped it back with a vicious stab of the pipe.

“Linc!” Kelly fell against him. He caught her up, and held her. “I didn't know, Linc! I only wanted to be near you.”

“How did you get through the gate?” he demanded. “Didn't the guard—”

“There wasn't any guard.” She jerked away from him and screamed, “Ichabod! Stop it! Ichabod!”

The spotted dog had hold of one of the arms and was shaking his head back and forth, growling in his throat. The arm levitated and pulled the animal off his feet. He dangled by his mouth, and the growl changed to a whine. Linc caught him with one hand, and with the other smashed the shiny black claw. It dropped Ichabod into his waiting grasp.

“Now take him and get out!” He thrust the dog at Kelly. “Hurry!” This corridor was pandemonium, and he had to get her to safety.

She obeyed without question, dodging her way toward the door. Halfway down the corridor, an Eye stopped her. It was two feet long, and brown, but there was menace in it.

“Run, Kelly. Don't look at it!” he commanded.

With a taking hold of herself that was visible even to Linc, Kelly ducked past the Eye and continued for the door. Then an arm, losing its clutch on a workman, arrowed for her and caught her about the shoulders. With a leap Ichabod sank his teeth into it, but it didn't let go.

Linc raced to add his strength to Kelly's struggle. The arm was leathery under his hands, and he tugged and pulled at it with desperate energy. Kelly was growing pale in its grip as it crushed her. Linc put his own teeth to the job, following Ichabod's example, and at the first startled relaxing of the arm, he wrenched it from her. He grabbed up his pipe and struck until it winced and retreated. Then he took Kelly and ran with her to the door, shoving her through.

“Get to the car and stay there!”

She left at a run and he returned to the fight. Half of the workmen were either down or standing stupidly in hypnosis. He had misjudged somewhere. He had counted on the gravity making the Zines use energy so fast that they would be too weak to defend themselves. But he had been wrong, for here they were—parts of them—floating and sailing about the corridor, disembodied and gruesome.

The men who hadn't been attacked by the flying arms, but concentrated on their work, were getting the last of the lead shields in place. But what good would that do if the Eyes weren't subdued?

He went back down the row with his pipe, defending the still working men as best he could. He was exhausted; the muscles in his back and shoulders were like aching sponge, their strength on the fast ebb, pain coming up to take them over. Sweat streamed down his face and tears streaked his skin, but he fought on, for this was certainly his doing and he had to make it right.

An Eye settled before him. Before he could attack it, it began to change, and he stepped back. Before his gaze, it shrank. And one of the arms in his field of vision suddenly let go its hold on a workman to hang limply in the air. It faded back into the wall—back into the wall.

Just as he started to hope, another arm near him exploded. One second it was there and whole, and the next it had disintegrated into particles so small they were nearly invisible; and these, too, exploded until the arm was no longer there.

This was the moment then, and Linc trembled at the immensity of what he had seen. The arm had split into a multitude of separate cells, bent on destruction.

He started to order his men to give up the fight and save themselves, if they could, when a haziness appeared in the empty space where the arm had been. Gradually the space refilled, collecting into larger and larger particles until the arm was again before him. Its shape was whole, but it hung limp and weak. It glided to the wall and seeped slowly through, disappearing back into the room.

All along the corridor, the arms were retreating, tired and spent.

Iverson came up. “What's happening?”

“I think we've made it, Doc. They've finally used up the radiation—all of it—and they're stuck. They tried to make good on their threat too late. They haven't enough energy left to split apart. The gravity took its toll.”

Iverson's face was torn with disbelief that ached to turn into acceptance. “Then you think we've won?”

“Not us, Doc. Luck—God—and their own egotism. If they had split sooner, we'd be through now. Pray that they don't rally!”

The workmen halted to watch the weirdness that surrounded them. The last arm was seeping back into the wall, and two of the Eyes followed. The other Eyes hung motionless, something gone out of them—the power and the menace. They shrank, from two feet down to one, and then to eight inches, and they grew dull and off-color. One by one they floated to the wall and slowly, inch by inch, pushed themselves through it, back to their parent horrors, and the sure starvation Linc had planned for them.

The hall was clear and silent.

Iverson, standing beside Linc, was an emaciated caricature of himself, but his face was warm with relief. “You did it,” he said to Linc. “You did it. And there are no words in the world big enough to thank you.”

“There isn't time for that, anyway. There are people still in the hole who need help, and there's a little more lead to put up. Let's not leave them one tiny bit of energy. Let's count the hours until they're gone from the face of the earth.”

The workmen went back to the plates as their vote of thanks. Iverson gripped his hand, then set off to make arrangements for the people in the hole.

Linc walked out of the corridor, out into the fresh, cold air of autumn, and the blast of a horn drew him in the direction of the car. Kelly ran to meet him halfway, Ichabod jumping and barking at her heels.

She threw herself into his arms and caught him so tightly that he grunted in protest. “It's over, isn't it?” she said. “I can tell by your expression. It's over, and we can go home.”

“We can.” He pushed her back so he could see all the happiness, relief and promise of her. “I'm transferring my destiny from the monster Zines to Kelly Adams. Do you think it's a fair exchange?”

“You'll find out. You'll have years to find out.”

“Well,” he teased, turning her to walk with him, “at least I'm sure of Ichabod.”

He liked the hard, sure sound of his footsteps on the cement. He was whole again, confident again—more than he had ever been before. He had gone into hell alone, and come out three: a man, a wife and a dog. It was the basis of many a life, and he clasped the goodness of it close.