flights, though he longed to. Oh, for a cloak of invisibility.
“Carry me! Can you carry me?”
“I suppose, but—”
He raced to the door, and fell backwards into her arms as it opened again.
“Why?” she asked.
“Do it, do it, do it!” he hissed through his teeth. She dragged him sack out into the corridor. He studied the chaos through slitted eyes, gasping realistically. Assorted agitated Duronas milled behind a cordon of Fell security now blocking the entry to the penthouse. “Get Dr. Chrys to take my feet,” he muttered out of the corner of his mouth.
Temporarily too overwhelmed to argue, Rowan cried, “Chrys, help me! We have to get him downstairs.”
“Oh—” Given the impression that this was some kind of medical emergency, Dr. Chrys asked no questions. She grabbed his ankles, and within seconds they were forcing their way through the mob. Two Doctors Durona carrying a white-faced, injured-looking fellow at a run—green-clad armed men stepped hastily aside and waved them on.
As they reached the ground floor Chris tried to gallop toward the clinic area. For a moment he was yanked two ways, then he freed his feet from the astonished Dr. Chrys, and pulled away from Rowan. She gave chase, and they arrived at the outer door together.
The guards’ attention was focused on the efforts of the two men with the projectile launcher; his eyes followed their aim to the shadowy form of their retreating target, being swallowed by the snowy clouds.
“Take me to the biggest, fastest thing you can make go,” he gasped to Rowan. “We can’t let them get away.”
“
“Those goons just kidnapped my, my … brother,” he panted. ’Gotta follow. Bring ’em down if we can, follow if we can’t. The Dendarii must have reinforcements of some kind, if we don’t lose :hem. Or Fell. Lilly’s his, his liegewoman, isn’t she? He has to respond. Or
“What the hell would we do if we caught them?” Rowan objected. ’They just tried to kidnap you, and you want to run after them? That’s i job for security!”
“I am—I am …”
His vision cleared with the hiss of a hypospray, biting cold on his arm. Dr. Chrys was supporting him, and Rowan had one thumb pressed against his eyelid, holding it up while she stared into his eye, while her other hand slipped the hypospray back into her pocket. A kind of glassy bemusement descended upon him, as if he were wrapped in cellophane. “That should help,” said Rowan.
“No, it doesn’t,” he complained, or tried to. His words came out a mumble.
They had dragged him out of the lobby, out of sight near one of the lift tubes to the underground part of the clinic. He had only lost moments to the convulsion, then. There was still a chance—he struggled in Chrys’s grip, which tightened.
The snap of women’s steps, not a guard’s boots, rounded the corner. Lilly appeared, her face set and her nostrils flaring, flanked by Dr. Poppy.
“Rowan. Get him out of here,” Lilly said, in a voice dead-level in tone despite its breathlessness. “Georish will be downside himself to investigate this one.
Chrys nodded and ran. Rowan took over holding him on his feet. He had an odd tendency to slump, as if he were melting. He blinked against the drug. No,
Lilly tossed Rowan a credit chit, and Dr. Poppy handed her a couple of coats and a medical bag. “Take him out the back door and disappear. Use the evacuation codes. Pick a place at random and go to ground,
Rowan nodded obediently, and didn’t argue at all, he noticed indignantly. Holding him firmly by the arm, she guided his stumbling feet down a freight lift-tube, through the sub-basement, and into the underground clinic. A concealed doorway on its second level opened onto a narrow tunnel. He felt like a rat scurrying through a maze. Rowan stopped three times to key through some security device.
They came out in some other building’s under-level, and the door disappeared behind them, indistinguishable from the wall. They continued on through ordinary utility tunnels. “You use this route often?” he panted.
“No. But every once in a while we want to get something in or out not recorded by our gate guards, who are Baron Fell’s men.”
They emerged finally in a small underground parking garage. She led him to a little blue lightflyer, elderly and inconspicuous, and bundled him into the passenger seat. “This isn’ righ’,” he complained, thick-tongued. “Admiral Naismith—someone should go after Admiral Naismith.”
“Naismith owns a whole mercenary fleet.” Rowan strapped herself into the pilot’s seat. “Let them tangle with his enemies. Try to calm down and catch your breath. I don’t want to have to dose you again.”
The flyer rose into the swirling snow and rocked uncertainly in the gusts. The city sprawling below them disappeared quickly into the murk as Rowan powered them up. She glanced aside at his agitated profile. “Lilly will do something,” she reassured him. “She wants Naismith too.”
“It’s wrong,” he muttered. “It’s all wrong.” He huddled in the jacket Rowan had wrapped around him. She turned up the heat.
All he had was Rowan. And, apparently, the Admiral, who had come searching for him. Who had very possibly risked his life to recover him. Why?
“The Dendarii Mercenaries. Are they all here? Does the Admiral have ships in orbit, or what? How much back-up does he have? He said it would take time for him to contact his back-up. How much time? Where did the Dendarii come in from, a commercial shuttleport? Can they call down air support? How many—how much— where —” His brain tried madly to assemble data that wasn’t there into patterns for attack.
“Relax!” Rowan begged. “There’s nothing we can do. We’re only little people. And you’re in no condition. You’ll drive yourself into another convulsion if you keep on like this.”
“Screw my condition! I have to—I have to—”
Rowan raised wry eyebrows. He lay back in his seat with a sick sigh, drained.
The lights on the control panel died. They were suddenly weightless. His seat straps bit him. Fog began to stream up around them, faster and faster.
Rowan screamed, fought and banged the control panel. It flickered; momentarily, they had thrust again.