“Don’t look for a bonus at Christmas.”
“We’re trapped here,” Amarjagal said, still as unemotional as a wood carving.
Fuchs saw the flames licking up the window draperies, heard them hissing, edging along the carpeting toward them. But the smoke was no worse than it had been before: annoying, but not suffocating.
“Where’s the smoke going?” he muttered.
“Captain, we must do something,” said Sanja, his voice tense. “We can’t stay here much longer.”
Fuchs scrambled to his feet and took a few steps along the hall. He saw the smoke curling up from the blazing drapes and streaming across the ceiling in a thin, roiling layer. It grew noticeably thinner halfway along the hall.
“Help me,” he called to Sanja as he grabbed a heavy chest of inlaid ebony. The two men wrestled it into the middle of the hall and Fuchs clambered up onto it.
A ventilator, he saw, its grillwork cleverly disguised to look like an ornamental design on the ceiling. It was closed, he realized, but not completely. Some of the smoke was being sucked up through it. He pushed against it with both hands. It gave, but only slightly.
Sanja immediately understood. He took a copper statuette from the nearest table and handed it up to Fuchs, base first. Fuchs pounded at the ventilator grill with the fury of desperation. It dented, buckled. With an animal roar he smashed at it again and the ventilator gave way with a screech of metal against metal. Immediately, the smoke slithering along the ceiling began pouring into the opening.
“It’s big enough to crawl through!” he shouted.
“Nodon,” said Amarjagal, on her feet now. “He’s unconscious.”
“Carry him. Come on.”
Fuchs hauled himself up into the ventilator shaft. It was filled with smoke and utterly dark inside. Coughing, he reached down for Nodon’s still-unconscious body. This shaft can’t be too long, he thought. We’re up near the roof. There must be an outlet nearby.
Crawling, coughing, eyes streaming with burning tears, he dragged Nodon’s limp body through the shaft. Its metal walls felt hot to his fingers, but he slithered along, knowing that either he found his way out of the building or he would soon die.
The security chief was peering at his display screens, straining to see what was going on in the dim shadows of the upstairs hall. The only light came from the flickering flames. The intruders were moving around, he felt sure, but it was almost impossible to make out anything definite in the smoke. Even the infrared cameras were virtually useless now. Several of the window draperies were blazing; the flames overloaded the surveillance cameras’ light sensitive photocells. All he could see was overexposed flickers of flame and inky black shadows shambling around.
The fire’s contained to the upstairs hall, he saw, checking the other screens. Thank god for small miracles. I’ll probably have to resign after this. If Humphries doesn’t fire me outright.
Pacing the length of the big bedroom, Humphries muttered, “I don’t like this. I don’t like being cooped up in here.” Victoria Ferrer suppressed an incipient smile. He’s really frightened, she thought. Normally, if we were locked in his bedroom together he’d peel this robe off me and pop me between the sheets.
“I don’t like waiting,” he said, louder.
“Think of it this way,” she suggested, not moving from the chair where she sat, “Fuchs is dying out there. When those fireproof doors open again you can go out and stand over his dead body.”
He nodded, but it was perfunctory. The thought of victory over Fuchs obviously didn’t outweigh his innate fear for his own life.
Fuchs’s lungs were burning. The metal walls of the ventilator shaft were scorching hot now as he crawled along blindly, dragging Nodon’s inert body with one pain-cramped hand. He couldn’t see Amarjagal or Sanja behind him. He didn’t even know if they were still there. His entire world had narrowed down to this smoke-filled, blistering hot purgatory.
Through tear-filled eyes he saw a light up ahead. It can’t be, he told himself. I’m starting to hallucinate. The garden outside is still in its nighttime lighting mode. There can’t be bright lighting out there—
His heart clenched in his chest. Unless the guards have turned up all the outdoor lights! Like a badger, Fuchs scuttled along the upward-slanting shaft, leaving Nodon and the others behind. Light! Air! He bumped his head against a metal grill, feeling blessedly cool air caressing his hot, sooty face. The smoke was streaming out. Fresh air was seeping in.
With his bare hands Fuchs battered the grill, punched it until his knuckles were raw and bleeding, butted it with his head, finally forced it open by wedging his feet against the sides of the shaft and leaning one powerful shoulder against the thin metal and pushing with all his strength. It gave way at last.
He took one huge gulp of fresh air, wiped at his eyes with grimy hands, then ducked back down the shaft to grab Nodon by the collar of his coveralls and haul him up onto the roof. Amarjagal’s head popped up behind Nodon’s booted feet. She too was grimy, soot-streaked. But she smiled and pulled herself out of the shaft.
“Stay low,” Fuchs hissed. “The guards must be patrolling the grounds.”
Sanja came up, and crawled on his belly to lay beside Fuchs. They looked out onto the splendid garden just beyond the mansion’s wall and, farther, to the trees and green flowering shrubbery of this artificial Eden planted deep below the surface of the Moon.
And there were guards standing out there, armed with assault rifles, ready to shoot to kill.
SHINING MOUNTAIN BASE
You there!” the guard yelled. “Stop that or I’ll shoot!”
Pancho realized that her necklace was tucked inside the dratted softsuit. She couldn’t reach it. Couldn’t whip it off her neck and toss it at the goon. Prob’ly wouldn’t have time to do it before he drilled me, anyway, she thought as she slowly climbed to her feet and raised both gloved hands over her helmeted head. She nudged the laser slightly with her boot. It was still on, still cutting away at the honeycomb shield outside the dome’s wall.
“Who the devil are you?” the guard demanded, walking slowly around the minitractor, a pistol leveled at Pancho’s navel. He looked African but spoke like an Englishman. “And what the devil do you think you’re doing?”
Pancho shrugged inside the softsuit. “Nothin’,” she said, trying to look innocent.
“My god!” the guard yelped, seeing that hole cut into the dome wall and the bright red hot spot the laser was making on the honeycomb shield. “Turn that thing off! Now! Don’t you realize you could—”
At that instant the honeycomb cracked open and a rush of air knocked Pancho flat against the curving dome wall. The guard was staggered but kept his senses enough to realize what was happening. He turned and ran as fast as he could, which wasn’t very fast because he was leaning against a gale-force wind trying to rush out of the hole Pancho had cut. The loudspeakers started yammering in Japanese, then in another language Pancho didn’t understand. She slid down to the floor and slithered out of the break, hoping the softsuit wouldn’t catch or tear on the broken edges of the holes the laser had made.
Outside, she looked around the barren lunar landscape. The dome was on the crest of the ringwall mountains that surrounded Shakleton. The ground sloped away, down toward the floor of the crater. Nothing to see but rocks and minicraters, some of them no bigger than a finger-poke into the stony ground. Damn! Pancho thought. I’m on the wrong side of the dome.
Without hesitation she began sprinting, looking for the launchpads, happy to be able to run inside a space suit. Inside the old hardshell suits it was impossible to do anything more than lumber along like Frankenstein’s monster.
That guard’ll be okay, she told herself. There’s plenty of air inside the dome. They’ll get the leak plugged before anybody’s in any real danger. Jogging steadily, she grinned to herself. Meantime, while they’re chasing around trying to fix the damage I’ve done, I’ll get to one of the hoppers and head on home.
A sickly pale green splotch of color appeared on the left side of her helmet. The earphones said, “Radiation warning. Radiation level exceeding maximum allowable. Get to shelter immediately.”
“I’m trying!” Pancho said, surprised at the suit’s sophistication.
