The Dark Design

He must have run in immediately after he had seen his colleague dive through the doorway. And John, seeing him outlined against the light from the corridor, had shot him. Doubtless, he, Cyrano, had not been fired at because the smoke was still too thick for him to be seen.

Two of his men were dead so far. Perhaps there were others elsewhere. They would be left there, since it had been agreed that carrying off bodies would slow the getaway.

Where were the others? Why had they not come in after him?

Ah, here were Cogswell and Propp!

Something hard struck him, lifted him up and backward, hurling him into a bulkhead. He fell down on his face, and lay there, while his ears rang and his head seemed to expand and collapse, expand and collapse, like an accordion. More heavy clouds of smoke filled the room, stinging his eyes and making him cough violently.

It was some time before he could get onto his knees and more time before he managed to stand. By then he understood that a bomb had gone off in the corridor. Had it been thrown down from the wheelhouse?

Whoever had done it, he had killed Cogswell and Propp. And he had come close to killing Savinien de Cyrano II de Bergerac.

John was on his knees now, swaying, staring ahead of him while he coughed. A pistol lay within reach of his hand, but he did not seem aware of it.

Ah, now the vile fellow had extended his hand to grasp its butt!

Having neither gun nor dagger, Cyrano unsheathed his epee. He stepped forward and brought its triangular blade down like a club against the back of John's head. John fell forward on his face and lay motionless.

The woman was on her face on the bed, her hands covering her ears and her shoulders shaking.

Cyrano staggered through the smoke, almost stumbling over Propp's body. He stopped when he reached the doorway. His sense of hearing was coming back, but the firing in the corridor sounded faint. He got down on his knees and dared to stick his head out. The smoke was being carried away by the draft from the doorway at the top of the ladder. A body lay at the foot of the ladder. Evidently someone from the wheelhouse, perhaps the bomb thrower. Down at the end of the corridor two men crouched, firing out through the entrance. They were raiders, Sturtevant and Velkas.

Now two men, smoke-grimed, were coming down the ladder. Reagan and Singh. They must have cleaned out the wheelhouse and were coming to help the abduction party. Their aid was indeed needed.

Cyrano got up and gestured at them. They said something, but he could not hear it. That bomb must have been a rather large one. It had certainly made a mess of the corridor.

Reagan and Singh entered the cabin and picked up the limp body of John. Cyrano followed them after sheathing his sword and reloading his pistols. The woman continued to hide her face in the mattress and to keep her hands over her ears. See no evil, hear no evil.

On stepping out of the cabin, he saw that Sturtevant and Velkas had left. So-whoever they had been shooting at had been eliminated. Reagan and the giant Sikh, dragging John, his head lolling, his feet trailing, were almost to the door. Velkas reappeared, ru

By putting his mouth against Cyrano's ear and yelling, Velkas made himself understood. Some of John's crew had gotten to a steam machine gun. But their backs would be exposed to fire from John's cabin.

They ran into the cabin and looked out a port. To the right was a platform which extended over the edge of the flight deck. On it was mounted the thick barrel of a steam gun. Two men were behind its shield, swinging the weapon around to bear on the helicopter.

To his left, below him, were Sturtevant and the two carrying John. They would also be in the line of fire of the gun.

Cyrano opened the wide, square port, braced his pistol on its ledge, and fired. A second later, Velkas' gun boomed in his ear, deafening him even more.

They emptied their pistols. At this distance accuracy was impos­sible. The Mark IV pistols were using precious lead bullets, but the charges required to propel .69-caliber missiles caused a powerful recoil. Moreover, the wind, though slight, had to be compensated for.

The first two volleys missed. Then the gu

By then, Sturtevant and the man dragging John were halfway across the deck. The chopper's vanes were whirling, but Cyrano could not hear them. Even if his hearing had been regained, the alarm sirens would have drowned out their noise.

Cyrano grabbed Velkas' arm and pulled him close. Shouting in his ear, he told him to get to the machine gun and hold off anybody who tried to attack. He gestured at the armed men who had just emerged from a hatch at the far end of the deck.

Velkas nodded and ran out the door.

Cyrano looked again through the porthole. The parties sent to blow up the paddlewheel motors and the ammunition supply were not in sight. Either they were still working or they were cornered and trying to shoot their way out.

He ran up the ladder and into the wheelhouse. Bodies lay on the deck. One of his men, two of John's. The lights shone on their blue-grey faces, staring eyes, and open mouths.

He turned off the alarm sirens and looked out the front screens. There was no one on the fore decks except a body at the foot of the ladder leading down from the fore part of the pilothouse and several bodies near the prow.

The boat was alongside a well-lit dock far longer and more massive than those usually found along The River. Perhaps the crew of the Rex had built it, their captain having decided to give every­body a long liberty. Or perhaps extensive repairs were needed.

It did not matter. What did was that the raiders had had the luck to find the boat ma

However, the uproar had awakened those on shore. They were streaming out from the huts on the plain and the stockaded fortress­es. The lights from the boat showed the forefront of the mob racing toward the dock. Many of these were crew members, since they carried metal weapons.

It had not been in the plan to move the boat from the dock, but it should have been. Cyrano, knowing that the boat would be invaded in overwhelming numbers within a minute or so, took action. He sat down in the pilot's seat, pressed the motor power switches, and gri

He prayed that just now would not be the moment for the motors to be blown up. If they were, the boat would be immobilized, and he and his fellows might not get to the chopper in time.

There was no time to untie the mooring lines. Too bad, but the power of the great electrical motors was immense.

He pulled back on the long, knobbed metal rods, one on each side of him, and the paddlewheels began turning backward. They moved slowly at first, too slowly to tear the lines. He pulled the sticks as far back as they would go, thus, causing the wheels to rotate at full speed.

The giant mooring ropes were stretched. But, instead of snap­ping, they pulled the ends of the vertical beams alongside the dock after the boat.

For a moment, the fastenings of the piles held. The people on the dock either threw themselves down or leaped across the space between dock and boat. With a rending noise that could be heard even above their shouts and the firing aft, the piles came loose.