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Nothing happened.
He cursed luridly, pushed out of the booth and tried the other. The second booth didn't even have a door, and there was fine dust floating in it. What the hell?
What was this place? The drugs on the shelves must have been incredibly valuable. Four human guards and a metal killer, a single door that looked like it would stand off an atomic attack, an instant-else-where booth with only one terminal and another booth you couldn't get out of... an invading army willing to go up against all that, with bombs... and suddenly he knew where he must be.
It was a double jolt.
Those shelves must have held dictator immortality. And they were bare.
Everything fitted. Of course you'd store geriatric drugs in a hospital. The booths must lead directly to dictator strongholds- and even they could only appear in the closed booth. If the man in the booth wore the right face, someone outside could dial him into the booth that had a door. If not, he was a sitting duck for the laser weapons.
And the vault door might well stand an atomic attack. But thieves had come through a wall -and maybe they'd used atomics too. Did Mirelly-Lyra know about this place? She must. She'd have kept looking until she found it.
And so would Corbell, and she knew it: The Norn herself had told him about dictator immortality. He had to get out of here.
Exhaustion had become an agony. He would climb the ladder if he must, if he could, but he tried the vault door first. And it was open! All of his strength and weight were just enough to swing it wide. The invaders must have left by the door they could not enter.
So did he, very gratefully. The line of "phone booths" was on this floor. He had walked a zigzag path from there; he might have trouble finding his way back- He saw the booths as he rounded a corner. And he saw Mirelly-Lyra Zeelashisthar, holding her cane like a gun and squinting at something in her other hand. Just before he ducked back he saw her look up at the ceiling with her teeth bared.
It wasn't him she was tracing. It was his pressure-suit helmet. Peerssa, good-bye. Corbell counted to thirty, then stuck his nose around the corner. She wasn't there. He tiptoed through the cloud-rug to the next intersection and peered around it. She wasn't there either, and he crossed the intersection at a leap and was in the nearest booth with the disk in his hand.
Mirelly-Lyra would not have liked the way he was smiling.
Two commas crossed; an S reversed; an hourglass on its side and pushed inward from the ends; a crooked pi. The corridors vanished. In blackness he thumbed the door open and stepped out into blackness. A gust of warm, damp wind whipped at him, and at the same time he saw dim light: a slender, hot-pink crescent with the horns down, at eye level.
He stood still while his eyes adjusted. A world took form around him.
He was on a flat roof, looking into a solar eclipse. They must be fairly common these days, with both Sol and Jupiter occluding so much of the sky. But the effect was beautiful, a hot-pink ring lighting sea and city with red dusk. He wished he could stay.
Mirelly-Lyra must be finding his pressure-suit helmet about now.
There were stairs. He would have been happier knowing how tall the building was, but he didn't. He had to walk all the way to the bottom-and he was reassured to recognize the building that housed Mirelly-Lyra's office. He paused for a precious moment of rest, then climbed back up three flights. Next question: Had the Nom noticed that the office door wasn't closed?
The sixth door was open a crack, blocked by a fallen button. The door resisted his weight, then gave slowly, let him in.
They must have turned these offices out like popcorn boxes, he thought. Did it co
Five buttons? He pushed the top one.
Through the glass door he saw salt dunes ru
Back in the office, he pushed number three.
In red-tinged darkness he saw a triangular floor plan, walls and roof exploded outward. A dark doughnut shape, coiled just where he would have stepped on it, raised a white face, questioningly.
He shouted, "Yeeehaa!"
"Meep?"
He jabbed the fourth button down. The startled cat-tail vanished.
Sunken tub, shower... He thought of hot water and comfort and sleep, and the hell with it. Would the old woman set her private zero-time "jail" next to a Turkish bath? Why not? But he pushed the bottom button anyway, to see what there was to see.
Thoughts of sleep returned. His knees sagged. His muscles and bones seemed to be melting. But he saw. Ovens and cupboards to left and right. A long dining table, floating, and lines of floating chairs. The hooded Norn at the far end, and the silver cane foreshortened, end-on. Behind her, shards of a picture window, and a bundle of thick cables ru
He stabbed two buttons and kicked out at the door.
II
He was trying to remember something. It was urgent.
See now, I hit an intercom button, then the door button, then kick out. Or the other way around? Intercom, door, kick out. Didn't wait- couldn't wait- never thought so fast in my life.
Pressure on his ankles. He thrashed a bit, got his elbows under him to lift his head. The door of the "phone booth" was trying to lift under his ankles. Beyond, the great red sun was almost whole again, a chunk still missing behind black Jupiter. Closer: A desk floated above cloud-rug.
He smiled and closed his eyes.
It was seconds or minutes before he stirred himself. The sun was still cut by Jupiter. He stood on the edge of the door while he looked for something to wedge it. He'd got out by the skin of his teeth. With the silver cane pushing him down into unconsciousness, he'd hit the intercom button to take him to the office, the button to open the door, then got his legs across the door to wedge it. So far so good, but- Assume the Norn was still guarding her zero-time device and her drug supply. He hadn't seen the marvelous machine, he couldn't even guess what it looked like, but what else could the cables be for? It must be there, and now Mirelly-Lyra knew he was after her drugs. By now she would know that the intercom to the office wasn't working. She would assume Corbell had blocked the door open.
He couldn't let the door close. She'd be out of it an instant later, right on his heels.
Corbell began to panic. He'd barred her from the general "phonebooth" system by barring her from the office. She couldn't use that. She couldn't come after him in the car; they'd left it here, just outside the entrance. So... yeah. Her fastest route to him was by intercom to the beach. Jog down to someone else's intercom booth, thence to someone else's office, dial for this building. By now she could be trotting down from the roof. And he still hadn't found anything to block the door!
He stripped off his undersuit and wedged it in the door. It was cool for a moment, until the sweat dried on him. Now he was naked-and ashamed; what he saw when he looked down was not a self to be proud of. But who would see him but Mirelly-Lyra? The old woman was probably in no better shape.
His personal possessions had dwindled to an ancient, withered body (stolen) and a single plastic credit card disk (also stolen). He took them down three fights of stairs and out.
The car was where they had left it.
It wouldn't start. He looked for a key or a key slot. If the Norn had taken the key he would have to walk. He found a slot, empty, and said a bad word before he noticed its size...