Chapter 21
HE WOULD HAVE RETREATED to the safety of the inn, but he was given no opportunity to do so. A roaring torrent of men swept along the street, hoplites and helots, shouting, cursing and screaming. He was caught up by the human tide, buffeted and jostled, crying out with pain himself when a heavy, military sandal smashed down on one of his bare feet. He was sucked into the mob, made part of it, became just one tiny drop of water in the angry wave that was rearing up to smash down upon the créche.
At first, he was fighting only to keep upright, to save himself from falling, from being trampled underfoot. And then—slowly, carefully and, at times, viciously—he began to edge out toward the fringe of the living current. At last he was able to stumble into a cross alley where he stood panting, recovering his breath, watching the rioters stream past.
Then he was able to think.
It seemed obvious to him that Diomedes must have planted his agents in more than one tavern. It was obvious, too, that Diomedes, ever the opportunist, had regarded the unfortunate incident in the Three Harpies as a heaven-sent opportunity for rabble-rousing—and as an excuse for the withdrawal of all police from the city. And that is all that it was—an excuse. It was doubtful, thought Brasidus, that Grimes had demanded protection. The spaceman was quite capable of looking after himself and his own people—and if the situation got really out of hand he could always lift ship at a second’s notice.
But there were still puzzling features in the situation. The military police were under the command of General Rexenor, with the usual tally of colonels and majors subordinate to him. Diomedes was only a captain. How much power did the man wield? How much backing had he? Was he—and this seemed more than likely—answerable only to the palace?
The mob was thinning out now; there were only the stragglers half-running, stumbling over the cobblestones. And already the first of the scavengers were emerging from their hiding places, sniffing cautiously at the crumpled bodies of those who had been crushed and trampled. Brasidus fell in with the tattered rearguard, kept pace with a withered, elderly man in rough and dirty working clothes.
“Don’t . . . know . . . why . . . . we . . . bother . . .” grunted this individual between gasping breaths. “Bloody . . . hoplites . . . ‘ll . . . be . . . there . . . first. All . . . the . . . bloody . . . pickings . . . as . . . bloody . . . usual.”
“What pickings?”
“Food . . . wine . . . Those . . . bloody . . . doctors . . . worse . . . ‘n . . . bloody . . . soldiers . . . Small . . . wonder . . . the . . . King . . . has . . . turned . . . against . . . ‘em.”
“And . . . the Arcadians?”
“Wouldn’t . . . touch . . . one . . . o’ . . . them . . . wi’ . . . barge . . . pole. Unsightly . . . monsters.”
Ahead, the roar of the mob had risen to an ugly and frightening intensity. There were flames, too, leaping high, a billowing glare in the night sky. The crowd had broken into a villa close by the créche, the Club House of the senior nursing staff. They had dragged furniture out into the roadway and set fire to it. Some of its unfortunate owners fluttered ineffectually about the blaze and, until one of them had the sense to organize his mates into a bucket party, were treated with rough derision only. And then the crowd turned upon the firemen, beating them, even throwing three of them into the bonfire. Two of them managed to scramble clear and ran, screaming, their robes ablaze. The other just lay there, writhing and shrieking.
Brasidus was sickened. There was nothing that he could do. He was alone and unarmed—and most of the soldiers among the rioters carried their short swords and some of them were already using them, hacking down the surviving nurses who were still foolish enough to try to save their property. There was nothing at all that he could do—and he should have been in uniform, not in these rags, and armed, with a squad of men at his command, doing his utmost to quell the disorder.
Damn Diomedes! he thought. He knew, with sudden clarity, where his real loyalties lay—to the maintenance of law and order and, on a more personal level, to his friend Achron, on duty inside the créche and soon, almost inevitably, to be treated as had been these hacked and incinerated colleagues of his.
The Andronicus warehouse . . .
Nobody noticed him as he crossed the road to that building; the main body of the rioters was attempting to force the huge door of the créche with a battering ram improvised from a torn-down streetlamp standard. And then, looking at the massive door set in the black, featureless wall of the warehouse, he realized that he was in dire need of such an implement himself. He could, he knew, enlist the aid of men on the fringes of the crowd eager for some violence in which they, themselves, could take part—but that was the last thing that he wanted. He would enter the créche alone, if at all.
But how?
How?
Overhead, barely audible, there was a peculiar throbbing noise, an irregular beat. He thought, So the Navy is intervening, then realized that the sound was not that of an airship’s engines. He looked up, saw flickering, ruddy light reflected from an oval surface. And then, in a whisper that seemed to originate only an inch from his ear, a familiar voice asked, “Is that you, Brasidus?”
“Yes.”
“I owe you plenty. We’ll pick you up and take you clear of this mess. I had to promise not to intervene—I’m just observing and recording—but I’ll always break a promise to help a friend.”
“I don’t want to be picked up, Peggy.”
“Then what the hell do you want? “
“I want to get into this warehouse. But the door is locked, and there aren’t any windows, and I haven’t any explosives.”
“You could get your friends to help. Or don’t you want to share the loot?”
“I’m not looting. And I want to get into the créche by myself, not with a mob.”
“I wouldn’t mind a look inside myself, before it’s too late. Hold on, I’ll be right with you.” Then, in a fainter voice, she was giving orders to somebody in the flying machine. “I’m going down, George. Get the ladder over, will you? Yes, yes, I know what Commander Grimes said, but Brasidus saved my life. And you just keep stooging around in the pinnace, and be ready to come a-runnin’ to pick us up when I yell for you . . . Yes, yes. Keep the cameras and the recorders running.”
“Have you a screwdriver?” asked Brasidus.
“A screwdriver?”
“If you have, bring it.”
“All right.”
A light, flexible ladder snaked down from the almost invisible hull. Clad in black coveralls, Peggy Lazenby was herself almost invisible as she rapidly dropped down it. As soon as she was standing on the ground, the pinnace lifted, vanished into the night sky.
“What now, love?” she asked. “What now?”
“That door,” Brasidus told her, pointing.
“With a screwdriver? Are you quite mad?”
“We shall need that later. But I was sure that you’d have one of your laser-cameras along.”
“As it happens, I haven’t. But I do have a laser pistol—which, on low intensity, is a quite useful electric torch.” She pulled the weapon from its holster, made an adjustment, played a dim beam on the double door. “Hm. Looks like a conventional enough lock. And I don’t think that your little friends will notice a very brief and discreet fireworks display.”
She made another adjustment, and the beam became thread thin and blinding. There was a brief coruscation of sparks, a spatter of incandescent globules of molten metal.
“That should be it. Push, Brasidus.”
Brasidus pushed. There was resistance that suddenly yielded, and the massive valves swung inwards.
Nobody noticed them enter the warehouse—the entire attention of the mob was centered on the door of the créche, which was still holding. When they were inside, Brasidus pushed the big doors shut. Then he asked, “How did you find me?”
“I wasn’t looking for you. We knew about the riot, of course, and I persuaded John to let me take one of the pinnaces so that I could observe the goings-on. Our liftoff coincided with a test firing of the auxiliary rocket drive—even your Captain Diomedes couldn’t blame Commander Grimes for wanting to be all ready for a hasty getaway. And the radar lookout kept by your Navy must be very lax—although, of course, our screen was operating. Anyhow, I was using my infrared viewer, and when I saw a solitary figure slink away from the main party, I wondered what mischief he was up to. I focused on him, and, lo and behold, it was you. Not that I recognized you at first. I much prefer you in uniform. Now, what is all this about?”
“I wish that I knew. But the mob’s trying to break into the créche, and I’ve at least one friend in there whom I’d like to save. Too . . . oh, damn it all, I am a policeman, and I just can’t stand by doing nothing.”
“What about your precious Diomedes? What part is he playing in all this?”
“Come on,” he snarled. “Come on. We’ve wasted enough time already.” He found the light switch just inside the door, pressed it, then led the way to the hatch in the floor. They went through it, down into the basement, and then to the big chamber. Peggy helped him to open the door, followed him to the far insulated wall. Yes, that was the panel beyond which lay the tunnel—the slots of the screw-heads glittered with betraying bright metal.
At the far end of the tunnel the door into the créche was not secured, and opened easily.