Contest

'In a minute, honey,' Swain said. Then to Selexin, 'What will they do?'

'I think they'll--'

'Daddy!' Holly whispered insistently.

'What is it, Holly?' Swain said.

'Daddy. Someone's here...' she spoke in such a low, hissing whisper that it took Swain a couple of seconds to realise what she had said.

He looked down at her. She was staring fearfully out over his shoulder.

Slowly, Stephen Swain looked behind him.

Across the wide room, he saw a body -- bloodied and mutilated -- hanging upside down from the ceiling, just inside the stairwell door.

And standing beside the body was Bellos.

----ooo0ooo------

Swain spun and saw the body next to Bellos swing around lazily. A wave of sadness shot through him as he saw the police uniform.

Hawkins.

Without a word, Bellos began to walk through the tangle of L-shaped desks toward them.

Toward them.

'Let's go!' Holly said loudly in his ear.

Swain moved laterally to his left, trying to keep as many desks as possible between him and Bellos.

Bellos did the same, moving in a peculiar, wide arc from left to right, threading his way calmly and quickly between the desks. He still had his white guide draped over his shoulder.

Swain stumbled away from the big man, toward the elevators, Holly in his arms, Selexin by his side.

'Nowhere to run!' Bellos boomed from across the study hall. 'Nowhere to hide?'

'They've found you out,' Swain called, walking backwards. 'They know you brought hoods into the contest. You cheated, and you got caught.'

Bellos continued to move forward in wide arcs, left and right. It was an odd movement, a movement that seemed to force them back. Back toward the--

'Their discovery will be of no help to you,' Bellos said.

Swain looked over his shoulder and saw the gaping black hole that was the left-hand elevator. The doors to the right one were closed.

Swain moved sideways until his back was pressed up against the call button panel.

'The Presidian is over, Bellos,' Swain said. 'You can't win anymore. They know you cheated.'

Behind his back, Swain's free hand searched for the call button, found it, pressed it.

'Perhaps they know,' Bellos said whimsically. 'Perhaps they don't. It does not matter now.'

'You have disgraced yourself!' Selexin blurted.

'And I don't care,' Bellos said defiantly. 'I did what I had to do to win. And even if they do find out about the hoodaya, I will still prove to them all that I have won this Presidian.'

'And how will you do that?' Selexin said.

Swain grimaced, knowing the answer.

'By being the only surviving contestant,' Bellos said.

Swain groaned.

Then he heard Holly's voice again. It was loud, close to his ear. 'Daddy, it's here.'

'What?'

'The elevator.' She pointed up at the numbered display above the elevator doors. The number 3 glowed yellow.

There was a soft ping.

The doors opened. The darkened interior of the elevator yawned before them.

'Inside,' Swain said quickly to Selexin. 'Now.'

Swain and Holly stepped back into the elevator as Selexin ran to the button panel and pressed a button.

Bellos didn't react quickly. In fact, he didn't react at all.

He just kept walking forward. Toward the elevator.

The doors began to close.

Bellos walked casually toward the lift.

As Swain watched, he got the impression that Bellos was in no hurry to get to them. It was as if he had all the time in the world.

As if he knew something that they did not. As if he had calculated...

But then the doors closed and they were swallowed by darkness and the elevator began its descent.

Two long cylindrical fluorescent light tubes lay on the floor of the lift -- they were the tubes that Hawkins had removed from their sockets when Swain and his group had been hiding on the First Floor earlier that night.

Swain put one of the tubes back into its socket, bathing the elevator in a dull white glow.

'Well, that was easy,' Selexin said.

'Too easy,' Swain said.

'Why didn't he follow us, Daddy?' Holly said. 'Before, he chased us all over the place. All over the place.'

'I don't know, honey.'

'Well, we are away now,' Selexin said. 'And that is all that matters.'

'That's what worries me,' Swain said.

And then it happened.

Suddenly. Without warning.

A loud, heavy thump! on the roof of the elevator.

They all froze. And then slowly, very slowly, looked up at the ceiling.

Bellos had jumped down onto the roof of the elevator!

He must have jumped across from the open doors of the other elevator.

Swain realised his mistake immediately. 'Goddamn it!'

'What?' Selexin said.

'You'll be happy to know,' Swain said wryly, 'that we've just managed to trap ourselves.'

He cursed himself. He should have seen it. While they were running away from Bellos, he had been moving in those strange arcs, virtually guiding them to the elevators. When they thought they were escaping, they were actually going exactly where he wanted them to go. Shit.

Suddenly, the hatch in the roof opened.

Swain pulled Holly and Selexin to the rear corner of the lift.

Bellos' head appeared through the open hatch upside down, his long tapering horns pointing downward.

He smiled menacingly.

Then his head disappeared from view, back outside the lift. A moment later Bellos swung down through the hatch, landing on his feet.

Inside the lift.

Right in front of them.

'Nowhere to run now,' he sneered. 'Finally.'

Swain pushed Holly into the corner behind him. Selexin stood by his side. Bellos was standing in the opposite corner of the elevator, beside the button panel. He didn't have his guide with him anymore.

Swain saw the panel next to Bellos and wondered which button Selexin had pressed. He hoped the little man had pressed the next floor. Then they might be able to make a run for it.

He saw the illuminated button and closed his eyes in dismay.

SL-2 was glowing.

That was Sub-Level Two, the Stack. The bottom floor. They were in for a long ride.

'You pressed the bottom floor?' he whispered to Selexin in disbelief.

'To get as far away as possible,' Selexin whispered back. 'How was I supposed to know he would jump on top of the--'