after the deafening onslaught of the earlier challenge. 'There is no passport. Therefore there can be no legitimate challenge. So you need not identify yourself.'
'Yes, we've been through this,' said Hatch. 'Just get out of my way, okay? I'm not in the mood.'
'Ah,' said the dorgi, 'but tomorrow we will go through this again, and tomorrow there will be a password. But you won't know what the password is. So then I will kill you.'
As it concluded this exercise in wishful thinking, the dorgi emphasized its enthusiasm for murder by swiveling its zulzers furiously. It had three zulzers, and each had seven snouts.
Ordinary dorgis, like those working for the Golden Gulag on security assignments, only had one seven-snout zulzer, but the Combat College was guarded by a hypercapacity heavy-combat military dorgi.
'There will be no password,' said Hatch. 'There is no password today, there was none yesterday and there will be none tomorrow. Understand? Passwords come from Central Command. Central Command is on Charabanc. The planet Charabanc is on the other side of the Chasm Gates. As for the Chasm Gates, why, they fell to ruin over twenty thousand years ago! Now get out of my way!'
'What you say is impossible,' said the dorgi stoutly. 'Chasm Gates cannot and do not fall into ruin. There is a technical hitch delaying the password. But I will have it by tomorrow and then I will kill you.'
'You're ten thousand years overdue for a psyche review,' said Hatch. 'You're cracked. You want to learn it the hard way? You'll get out of my way right now or I'll report you to the Combat College. After that – well, you know what happens then!'
'You are bluffing,' said the dorgi.
But in its heart of hearts the recalcitrant machine knew that Asodo Hatch was not bluffing. The dorgi was no great shakes as a psychologist, but it saw that this time it really had pushed Hatch too far, and if it pushed just one fraction more then Hatch really would lodge a formal complaint with the College, despite the fifty arcs of red tape time that would follow as a consequence.
So the dorgi, grumbling, backed off into its side corridor.
But Hatch had barely got past the machine when it came lurching out again, blasting the air with its klaxon. Hatch jammed his fingers into his ears. Despite the jamming, the dorgi's challenge came through loud and clear:
'Halt! Halt! Halt right now! Take off your clothes! Take off your clothes! Now! Now! Or you will be exterminated!'
Hatch unjammed his ears and turned on the machine. As he did so, from the far side of the metallic brute there came the sounds of Shona's womanly wrath, an edge of murder in her fury:
'Exterminated! I'll do the exterminating around here! You get out of my way right now or I'll get a power wrench and I'll rip your torque out.'
As the dorgi began arguing with Shona, Hatch escaped to the lockway. The innermost airlock door dissolved. Hatch slipped inside and the innermost door reformed. There was a faint hiss of positive pressure.
'Greetings, citizen,' said an automated female voice. 'Your duty as a citizen is to vote. Democracy is our common duty… very well, very well… you have your first clearance… prepare to proceed.'
The central door dissolved. Hatch stepped into the outer chamber. The central airlock closed. Again the hiss of positive pressure.
'Have you time to spend with the ill or the aged?' said the automated female voice. 'Human Concern is our commoncause enabling organization. Human Concern welcomes your involvement for the common good… very well, very well… you have your second and final clearance… prepare to proceed.'
The kaleidoscope of the outermost door collapsed. Driven by the positive pressure within the airlock, it spewed outwards outwards in a mess of shivering slob.
Hatch exited, striding bravely through the slob, only to be accosted by a mob of beggars. They were demanding not alms but justice, something Hatch was equipped to dispense since, by virtue of being a captain of the Imperial Guard, he was automatically a Judge of the Open Court.
So Hatch spent a weary time trying to make sense out of a three-cornered dispute between the beggars Grim, Zoplin and Lord X'dex Paspilion, something to do with the use of the Eye and the alleged theft of a considerable fraction of a much-decomposed dog corpse.
Hatch did his best, which was not easy, since the affairs of the poor are typically more complicated than those of the rich, and this seemed to be one of those cases in which everyone is at least partly to blame. Hatch at last decided that Grim should be allowed to punch Zoplin twice, and that Zoplin should be given the privilege of kicking Lord X'dex thrice in the ribs, but that Zoplin should have the exclusive use of the Eye until dawn the next day.
Having thus discharged his responsibilities, Hatch made his escape, or tried to, but in Scuffling Road he was waylaid by the noseless moneylender Polk, whose many demerits were increased by the fact that, thanks to his noseless state, he always reminded Hatch unpleasantly of his political nemesis, the implacable and ever-victorious Nambasa Berlin.
'Hatch!' said Polk, seizing upon the Frangoni warrior with claws which gripped like pincers.
Upon which Asodo Hatch turned upon the unfortunate moneylender. He seized Polk's wrist and twisted it free with a viciousness which almost broke the joint.
'Polk,' said Hatch, with murder in his voice.
Then caught a glimpse of something sun-struck and striking.
It was a knife.
As Dog Java struck, Hatch blocked the blow with the body of the moneylender Polk. Dog's murderous blade slammed into Polk's back. Hatch felt the moneylender's body shake as Dog's knifestrength hit it, and hit it hard.
'Gah!' said Dog, realizing he had struck Polk rather than Hatch.
'You fool!' roared Hatch, letting Polk fall.
Dog confronted him. For a moment. Gaping. Blinking. Combatshocked. Seared and shaken by his own audacity. And terrified to realize that his audacity had failed him – and that his musclepumped enemy still lived. Then Dog took to his heels, pelting away in a panic, fleeing back toward the lockway. Hatch made no attempt to pursue him. While Dog had the physique of a sprinter, Hatch was a bodybuilder, and was built accordingly.
'What was all that about?' said Polk, picking himself up from the dust where Hatch had dropped him.
'What?' said Hatch, astonished. 'I thought you were dead!
Here, let me look at you.'
With that, Hatch took Polk by the shoulders and spun him round. The cloth which covered the moneylender's back had been knife-struck, ripping open a rent which revealed bright-shining fish-scale armor, the smoothest and brightest which Hatch had ever seen in his life. The workmanship was incredible, and, assuming that the armor had successfully blocked a full-strength blow by Dog, it was hard to assume that stuff so thin and yet so strong was of local make.
'Where did you come by this?' said Hatch.
'Never you mind,' said Polk, breaking free from the Frangoni warrior.
And, clearly disconcerted by the knife attack, and by Hatch's discovery of his secret armor, Polk made his getaway, leaving to a later date whatever discussion he had had in mind.
Hatch then started to make his way toward the lockway, intending to reenter the Combat College and bring Dog to justice.
But he was intercepted by Shona, who had seen Dog's attack, and who restrained him.
'You might get ambushed,' she said.
There was a lot of good military sense in this, for it was most unlikely that Dog would have sought to strike Hatch down unless he had been encouraged to do so by some kind of conspiracy.
So inside Cap Foz Para Lash there might be half a dozen or more Dog-minded knife-strikers ready to rip up Asodo Hatch if he incontinently pursued his quarry into the Combat College. So Hatch allowed Shona to talk him into settling his nerves with a cup of tea, and then, with his nerves settled – he had been shaken, he had to admit it! – Hatch went on his way.
Chapter Thirteen
