The Universe — or Nothing by Meyer Moldeven

  Chapter TWELVE

  Mixing with the street people, Drummer in sight upahead, they moved swiftly. Adari trailed Drummer;Brad next followed by Myra and Kumiko. Zolan andHodak brought up the rear. Drummer successfullyresisted the temptation to look back.

  Zolan tensed, activating the mind-mike in hisarmpit. Brad acknowledged by stepping up his pace.He passed Adari and drew alongside Drummer.

  "Your buddy, Scarf, must have had a friend in thebar," he said. "We're being tailed."

  "Another hundred meters. Cut into the alley on theleft."

  Drummer responded. "It'll take us through amaze that still confounds the street people. We'llhave a better chance in there to lose whoever isfollowing."

  A corner loomed. They squeezed into a narrow,rubble-strewn passageway between high, roughwalls. Stumbling along the barely lighted shaftthey entered an alley, equally shabby, crowded withstreet people, refuse, and abandoned machinery.

  They sped along the alley, noting its darkened,fuser-formed doorways, some empty, othersclogged with trash. Inside, they saw the shadowyoutlines of men, huddled women and children.

  Drummer twisted from one alley into the next,and then another.

  He ducked through a gap in one wall, squeezed alonga narrow hallway and exited into an open space. Theypacked up close, running and stumbling.

  Drummer slowed next to a wall of composite blocks.Several were missing, leaving a space throughwhich they squirmed. It was tighter than they hadexperienced. In near darkness, they had reacheda dead end.

  Ahead was loose rubble forming a heap about twometers high. Drummer clawed his way around theside. He motioned the others forward and slippedout of sight.

  Following one behind the other, they saw an openingin the surface. Responding to Drummer's beckoning,they dropped into its darkness. The fall was lessthan a couple of meters. A light glowed from a wallto just enough to illuminate Drummer.

  They were in a small, roughly rounded chamber.The walls were fused rubble, irregular and jagged.The floor was a mixture of Plutonian detritus.

  Drummer knelt beside a rock that protruded fromthe wall. He twisted the rock, pulled, and pushedit sideways. Reaching into the vacated space, heplaced his palm on a flat, smooth disk.

  A low hum from the wall. A fissure formed wherethe wall met the trash-laden floor. The breachlengthened and curved, its ends meeting the wall.The section dropped away into darkness.

  "Move, move," Drummer snarled his impatience."Scarf has this entire sector blocked out by now.He'll throw his gangs into the alleys and coverevery square meter. These subsurface crawl spacesand links are our only way. Feel for the ladder."

  He lowered himself through the opening and vanished.

  Brad was committed. His glance ordered the othersto follow Drummer. Hodak passed his light to Bradand dropped through first, then Zolan followedMyra, Adari and Kumiko. Brad dropped throughand pushed the cover up until it snapped. Closed.He felt vibrations above him, then, after severalseconds, silence.

  "Must be spreading the dust of our tracks and theoutline of the cover," Zolan murmured, looking upfrom immediately below.

  The ladder was rickety, and the shaft narrow andlong. When Brad reached bottom, he was in a lowgallery, about two meters square, hacked out of therock. They were in the hub of a dozen passagewaysthat led off in as many directions from low entries.

  Drummer bent and disappeared through one ofthe entries. One after the other, they followed.

  The entry led into a utility service tunnel, thewalls lined with scores of braided cables and banksof wall switches and junctions. Neutro-lightedsconces glowed at intervals, providing dimdirection to their flight.

  Scuttling in single file and dodging cables slungbetween supporting columns, they covered distanceswiftly. Brad moved up behind Drummer, replacingHodak who dropped back to rear guard immediatelybehind Zolan.

  "Scarf knows about these utility passages, and thatwe would head for them," Drummer gasped over hisshoulder. "What he doesn't know is which access andbranches we took and where we'll surface. A slightadvantage, if we act quickly."

  They scampered and slithered for more than halfan hour. "Looks like we're the only ones down here,"said Brad.

  Drummer halted to recover breath. The line closedup.

  "Normal," Drummer gasped. "These passages wereabandoned years ago, after we switched to localtransmission from control modules suspendedbeneath the dome. Too much trouble to collapsethe subsurface tunnels, I suppose. Also, we hadto consider the surface effects of a collapse.Couldn't afford the chance. As you see, thenetwork is still useful."

  He shot a quick glance at Brad, then ahead alongtheir route.

  "Don't get the impression I've got to run fromScarf," Drummer said, heaving another deep breath,"or even to avoid him under ordinary circumstances.Obviously, he was drunk. My presence in the bar-roomgave him an opportunity to enhance his image.Your companion's intervention, I admit, relievedthe pressure, but the method he chose may proveunfortunate."

  "Why this melodramatic escape?"

  "To avoid a confrontation in which Scarf, backedup by his troops, would be in complete control; aconfrontation in which you couldn't possibly holdyour own. The encounter has already causedme embarrassment. I don't relish a repetition."Drummer paused. "And there's another reason."

  "Oh?"

  "I know who you are, and the circumstances thatbrought you and your associates to Planet Pluto.I want to know more."

  "Why?"

  "My answer to that depends on what I learn aboutyou and your companions."

  Drummer slowed to a fast walk, searching spacesbetween the bundles of the thick cables.

  "So that you know," he said, "we're heading for myvilla-dome about five kay from the city."

  Drummer grunted that he'd found what he hadsearched for. Clawing under a flap, he uncovereda depression in the wall alongside a cable junction.He pressed himself in behind the junction andinto a cranny, motioning to Brad. One by one, theysqueezed through, and found themselves at the footof a flex-ladder. Drummer climbed; they followed.

  They emerged through a manhole into a kiosk nextto a transit strip. Darting from the kiosk Drummerboarded the strip and nodded back to Brad to joinhim. Within moments they were all gliding towardan air lock leading to the outside.

  Entering the air lock, they hurried into spacesuits from the public service rack, checked eachother's seals and oxygen reserves, tested thecommunications and pressurization systems andcrowded into the pressure-equalization chamber. Airlock and suit pressures up, balanced and checked,Drummer jerked a lever and, a moment later, theyducked under the rising panel to the outside.

  Running along the ramp Drummer flashed his suitlamps at a parked robo-taxi. The signal activatedthe craft and it was in ready status when theyreached it. Boarding first, Drummer keyed incoordinates. As the last Sentinel scrambled throughthe hatch he hit the lift button. The taxi rose andcurved away.