Страница 37 из 85
"Watch it!" King's eyes flashed warning, staring past Grayson's shoulder. "Company!"
Grayson turned and saw the bearded Marik soldier he'd been talking with moments before coming toward them.
"I was just telling my friend . . ." Grayson began.
"Right, I saw that," the soldier said. "I just thought you'd like me to walk you up to the documentation center myself, so you wouldn't get lost."
"That's kind of you," Grayson said, smiling. "We know where it is, and we aregoing . . . right now."
The soldier's right hand rested lightly on the butt of his holstered stu
"I assure you it's not necessary."
"I insist." The soldier's friendliness was gone now.
If Grayson and King were taken as far as the documentation center, their chances of escape would be considerably reduced—possibly to nil. There would certainly be more soldiers there, soldiers better-armed and more watchful than the isolated bands of soldier-tourists that dotted the crowds around them. The time to make a break for it was now, before this trooper became thoroughly alarmed, and before they ended up someplace where their chances of escape were as nonexistent as their papers.
"Well, fine, then," Grayson said. He exchanged glances with King and was certain from the Tech's guarded expression that he had assessed the situation and arrived at the same conclusion as Grayson. "Shall we go?"
Grayson turned to go up the street in the direction of the Council House, but the first two steps he took also brought him closer to the soldier, and to the man's left. King also started in the same direction, but he stepped to the right on a course that would take him behind the soldier as he walked past.
Realizing that the two other men were splitting up, the soldier took a quick step backward, and turned to his right to face King. The stu
The Tech had already moved by that time, and his booted left foot was sweeping the air in a stiff-legged roundhouse kick that landed squarely behind the Marik soldier's ear. Grayson had been trained in hand-to-hand combat as an apprentice, but there had never been reason or time to sharpen his skills with much practice. It looked as though Alard King had had plenty of practice, for he moved with lighting speed and precision. The fight was over before it had even properly started. The soldier lay sprawled on the pavement, face down. Grayson picked up the man's sonic stu
"Let's move it!" King's said, his voice low but penetrating.
Grayson nodded. The disturbance had impinged on the crowd around them like ripples from a pebble thrown in a pond. Most of the civilians were crowding back and away from the two warriors and the Marik soldier's still form, while other Marik soldiers were forcing their way in against the flow. Grayson saw several guns already in hand and plainly in sight. The soldiers weren't close enough to see the unconscious soldier yet, but a few moments more, and they would be.
"We'll split up." It would be safer traveling separately, Grayson decided quickly. One of them, at least, might be able to make the inquiries they needed. "Try to meet me at the skimmer lot in . . . five hours. We each wait an hour, and if there's no rendezvous, we make our own way back to the camp."
"Right! Five hours! Wait an hour and then we're on our own!" Then the Tech was gone, fading into the crowd with a sudde
"You! Stop where you are!"
The new voice had the snap of authority behind it. Grayson didn't bother to look, knowing full well that the soldiers had spotted him walking away from the first soldier's body. He threw himself past the corner of a building, dodging through a deserted alleyway lined with refuse cylinders, a cool, dank semi-darkness leading down a slight hill toward the next main parallel street.
"Stop! Stop!" came the shouts, but fainter now. The mouth of the alley opened ahead, bright with sunlight and the moving figures of civilians. A quick turn into that next street, and . . .
Shadows moved against the light, blocking the way. One dropped into a crouch as the figure whipped a gun to bear on Grayson's chest.
"Halt where you are, grounder!"
15
Veering suddenly, Grayson vaulted a garbage can, then dove directly toward the Marik soldier. A sound buzzed under his chest as something struck his left leg a numbing blow. "Watch out!" the standing man yelled, and then Grayson was rolling across the ferrocrete pavement in a tangle of legs and arms.
He came up with all of his strength and mass behind the outthrust heel of his hand, smashing up into the jaw of the standing man and sending him sprawling back into the refuse cylinders in the alley. A plastic radio handset splintered on the walkway at his feet. Grayson spun and started to run, but his left leg nearly gave out.
Marik soldiers were shouting from down the alley. Grayson noted quickly that at least two were down, caught by the sonic bolt that had nearly felled him in mid-flight. His own left leg tingled where it had caught the fringes of that beam. Forcing himself to stay on his feet, he hurried his way down the street and into the crowd with a lurching gait.
There was no safety in the crowd, he knew. There were people all around him, farmers and laborers for the most part, all dressed as he was, but his limp made him stand out from the rest. If that weren't enough to give him away, then the wild-eyed look of desperation on his face would probably do it better. He was going to have to find a place to hide until the effects of the sonic bolt wore off.
Following a side branch of the street he was on, Grayson came to a broad, ferrocrete plaza, with an open park beyond. Though the park was close to the center of Helmdown and its unexpected crowds, it would provide him with temporary sanctuary. There were people here as well, but not so many of them. Many were couples, strolling slowly or lying on the gray-green grass under spreading hostlepines, while they talked, read, or kissed. A low stone wall along the edge of a sculpture garden was occupied in various places by couples or solitary figures enjoying the shade from the surrounding buildings.
Seated on the wall, Grayson felt he would not look out of place. Neither would the dragging limp of his leg, now tingling furiously with the pins and needles of returning sensation, mark him out. He leaned back and pretended to study the art displayed in the sculpture garden. Grayson knew little about classical statuary, though these looked like something he'd once heard referred to as Rim Worlds Neo-Realist. The forms seemed to represent either nude women or dying warriors, and they must once have been colored in realistic tones. That would have been in the days when the garden had first been opened, long before the nuclear death of Freeport and so much more of this world. The colors were faded now, except for bits and pieces, and the forms were waterstained, pollution-marred, and overgrown with moss and weeds. The shade trees that once had surrounded the garden had long since been cut down, and except for the half-hidden statues, the place had the look of an overgrown abandoned lot.