Getaway world, p.12
Getaway World, page 12
Helena made a valiant struggle and did manage to get to her feet. Her long black hair was all askew and covering half her face, so that she could barely see where she was going. Yvette led her along by the hand, slowing her own pace down to a comparative crawl. But it couldn't be helped; Helena had to be gotten out of here safely.
The floodlights swung on them again and sirens wailed through the night air. The sound drilled right through the women's skulls, rattling their thoughts. Yvette ceased planning her moves, relying on her well-trained instincts instead. If they couldn't save her, nothing could.
A silhouette appeared before her against the glare of the light. Yvette fired by reflex and the figure fell. More figures appeared to take its place. She pushed Helena violently sideways to get her out of the line of fire, and began an elaborate dance of her own to keep herself clear of the deadly beams.
Without warning, a wall of flames erupted on her left. Some of the boxes in that area must have contained combustible materials, and a searing blaster beam had ignited one pile. Within seconds, the area had heated up and was being covered by a cloud of thick, black smoke.
Yvette found herself choking on the fumes, but she was' not alone-her pursuers were also caught in the sudden inferno. The coughing of smoke-filled throats assailed her ears, mingling with the hysteria of the sirens. She instinctively started running in the direction opposite the coughing, then realized Helena was not with her.
She looked around wildly, her eyes stinging from the smoke. Through the tears that were welling up, she thought she saw Helena being grabbed by one of the guards and dragged, kicking and biting, away. Then more guards closed in around the scene and cut it off from her further view.
She had to rescue Helena! That one thought resounded in her mind. But as she stopped and turned around to take a step in that direction, a stack of burning boxes toppled directly into her path, shooting sparks in all directions. The intense heat forced her back, and when she looked again Helena was gone.
Her instincts for survival came to the fore. If it was impossible, momentarily, to perform her mission, then she should save herself so that she could perform it later. She fled the confusion at the fire, blasting down the few stray guards she saw. There seemed to be more of them arriving every second, and the charge pack of her gun was beginning to fade out. She stopped beside the charred body of one of her would-be killers and traded guns with him; he would never miss it now.
The entire field was bathed in light now, and completely encircled by guards. She could hear them yelling back and forth at one another as they tried to coordinate their efforts to catch her. From the sounds of their voices, there must have been fifty of them.
For one of the few times in her life, Yvette felt the sinking feeling of despair. There did not seem to be any way in the Universe she could outfight and elude fifty fully armed people all by herself. Even she and her brother fighting back to back would have a hard time coping with odds of twenty-five to one-and enemy reinforcements were pouring in at an even greater rate. It was not fear Yvette felt. She had long ago resigned herself to the thought of dying in the service of her Emperor. What made her feel bad was the knowledge that she had failed in her mission here. To die and succeed was a glorious end; to die a failure was ignominious.
Suddenly she heard a thunderous roar, a squeal of tires and a crashing sound approaching her. From out of nowhere, a long, low limousine appeared. It was black, nearly five meters long and almost three wide. It came racing up at a breakneck pace, toppling stacks of crates that lay in its path.
It pulled to a screeching stop in front of her and one side door popped open. She raised her blaster to fire automatically, but some instinct made her hold back and not shoot. She thought she heard a voice over the din saying, "Quick, get in!"
There was absolutely nothing to lose at this point, so she did. The instant she was seated-before she could even close the door behind her-the car shot forward, knocking over still more cartons and adding to the total confusion.
The driver drove with such quick reflexes and reckless daring that she was sure it must be her brother. Her first glance at him through the semidarkness of the car's interior reinforced that impression. But then Yvette realized that she was making the same mistake she had made once before.
The person behind the controls was none other than Pias Nav.
Chapter 10
Interrogations
A thousand thoughts popped into Yvette's mind, a million questions that Nav had to answer occurred to her. She put all of them aside for the moment as irrelevant. Right now it didn't matter what heinous crimes Nav had committed; he was saving her from the guards, and that was what counted. Later, at a more convenient moment, questions of guilt could be raised.
Therefore, instead of thanking him or asking what he was doing here, her first words to him were; "My brother."
Nav understood precisely what she meant, and gave a slight nod. He pressed the accelerator button and the car gave an extra surge as it leaped forward on its new quest to find Jules. The presence of the car was confusing to the enemy. They knew it was one of their own vehicles, but it was behaving in a totally unexplained manner. A few of them guessed at the truth and fired blaster bolts in the car's direction. The few that hit bounced harmlessly off the metal sides; the car, Yvette surmised, must have enough armor plating to withstand the fire of band weapons. But there were few shots that even came close to hitting; Nav was driving like a calculating madman, swerving in and out so quickly that few guards had time to react or take careful aim.
After driving recklessly for thirty seconds, they came to a cluster of guards gathered in one area and excited as a pack of hounds chasing a cornered animal. Jules had found a cargo tractor and had backed it up against the wall of a building. The tractor gave him effective cover to shoot at the guards while they had no clear shots at him. He could hold them at bay for the moment, but there was little doubt the charge in his blaster would soon be spent, leaving him stranded there helpless.
Nav drove at the pack of guards from the rear, where they weren't expecting an attack.
They scattered quickly in their haste to avoid being run over, and Nav zipped through ,the crowd into no-man's-land, swerving broadside to a stop in front of Jules. Yvette flung her door and yelled, "ICI!"
Jules needed no second invitation. With one quick glance to make sure no one was in firing position at that instant, he vaulted over the tractor and crossed the distance between it and the car so rapidly that those people observing it could only blink in astonishment. Yvette slid over on the seat closer to Nav, giving her brother room to climb in beside her. As was the case before, Nav barely waited until Jules was in before gunning the accelerator to the limit. He spun the car around and headed for a little knot of guards who had started to regroup after his last pass. The people scattered again as Nav drove through and left a trail of havoc in his wake.
With no reason to linger now, Nav was not about to let anything stop him on his way out of the spaceport. He pushed his vehicle to its top speed of 175 kilometers an hour and was out the main gate before any of the guards could reach their own cars and give chase.
Garst was furious with himself. I overestimated them this time, he thought. I thought that their being here meant they'd found out about me. But they hadn't. They were only investigating Sanctuary itself.
He was grateful that he had a security chief like Rawling. If she had merely obeyed his orders, the SOTS trio would have gotten completely away, leaving him to look like an idiot while explaining the failure to Lady A. Rawling had behaved with commendable speed, too; at the first alarm from the port, she was able to mobilize nearly all her personnel and get them there on the double. It was solely through her efforts that Helena von Wilmenhorst had been captured intact. The two DesPlainians had escaped, but that was not Rawling's fault; no one could have presupposed the miraculous intervention of what had to be a fourth SOTE operative.
Rawling had apologized for that, of course, but she assured him that her people were combing the entire city and that no one could evade her net for long. Garst nodded, knowing just how thorough Rawling was.
I might as well examine my winnings. "Send in the von Wilmenhorst woman," he said aloud.
Helena was wheeled into the room. She had been strapped into a chair and, as a further precaution, had been given a mild tranquilizer to keep her from making any serious attempts to escape. But even the drug could not stifle the expression of shock that registered on her face as she saw him. Her eyebrows arched and she exclaimed "Boche moi" under her breath.
"Do you recognize me then, Your Grace?" Garst asked, using her formal title to indicate he knew who she was.
"I... I've seen pictures. You're Garst. But... but you're dead."
"An exaggerated but convenient rumor. No doubt your DesPlainian friends described my demise in some detail."
Helena did not react to that remark, so Garst continued his harangue. "Well, it is true that, when I saw the woman charging at me, I started running. My foot slipped and I fell through the door to the vat of recycling chemicals. There is, however, a catwalk for the benefit of the plant's workers that runs around the lip of the tank; I landed on that and ran around to the tank's back exit before anyone came to the door to look in. When they couldn't see me, they surmised I had fallen into the chemicals and been dissolved. I saw no profit in disillusioning them. Instead, I left Vesa as quickly as I could and made some contacts that eventually landed me in charge of the operation here."
He walked over to the helpless woman, pulled up a chair and sat down next to her. "Now that I've been so gracious as to tell you some things about myself, perhaps you would care to reciprocate. What are you doing here?"
Helena just glared at him.
'"I know you are Duchess Helena von Wilmenhorst, chief administrative assistant to your father the Grand Duke, who is also the Head of SOTS."
Helena's eyes widened, but still she said nothing.
"But there still are so many things I don't know, and I need to know them. Who your friends are, for instance, and what I may expect from them. But you're not going to tell me, are you?"
More silence from the girl strapped in the chair.
Garst sighed and stood up. "I didn't really think you would. SOTS personnel have a high reputation for not divulging information willingly, even under torture. It's even said that they are given conditioning against most forms of truth drugs. Which leaves me only one alternative.
He went to his desk and, out of the top drawer, pulled a hypos prayer filled with a colorless liquid.
There was no doubt in Helena's mind what that fluid was: nitrobarb. Under its influence, she would tell Garst anything he wanted to know-and she only had a fifty percent chance of surviving the experience, even if Garst decided to let her live.
"Don't use that," she said. "I'll talk."
"A very nice offer, Your Grace-but at this stage of our relationship, not a very trustworthy one. You would talk most fluently and most dishonestly, giving me lies that are backed up with just enough truth to make them believable. I think I'll stick to proven methods."
As he approached the bound girt, she struggled to get away, but to no avail. Garst injected the vicious drug into her arm and within seconds she had passed into the deep coma that was the first step of the drug's reaction. In another twenty minutes she would return to semiconsciousness and tell him anything that was in her mind.
Garst settled back patiently to wait, suddenly feeling very confident. He had plenty of time.
The three fugitives ditched their stolen car shortly after they'd escaped from the spaceport area and eluded their pursuit. Since all three were from heavy gravity worlds, they were able to run at an equal pace and be far enough away from the car to be safe-for a short while at least.
They took refuge in an alley behind a group of stores that were closed for the night.
There in the shadows they bent over, panting to recover their breath before deciding what move to make next. Jules in particular was very concerned about this sudden turn of events and what it might mean. He had not questioned Nav before now because, like Yvette, he knew their main hope lay in running as fast as possible. But now that they were momentarily out of danger, there were a few things he wanted to know.
"I want to thank you for saving both our lives, of course," he began, "but I have to know what in the Galaxy you were doing out there."
"I don't suppose you'd believe I was just in the neighborhood and saw your light," Nav said, flashing an ingenuous smile. Jules did not react, and Nav's smile faded. "Khorosho, I'll tell you the truth. I was getting a little tired of this planet and I wanted to be moving on. Some of my Gypsy heritage, I guess. I was outside the spaceport field, trying to decide how best to get in, when all of a sudden everything in there exploded. I saw the two of you in trouble, and thought I'd help."
"Just out of the goodness of your heart, is that it?" Jules sneered.
"It was mostly for your sister's sake," the gambler shot back. "I feel a great deal of... well, interest in her welfare."
Jules snorted and Yvette looked sadly away so that Nav would not see the look in her eyes.
"What is it with you two? I've just saved your lives and instead of being grateful, you start criticizing me. Has it occurred to you that I'm now in a good deal of trouble too, because of that? What do you expect from me?"
Jules looked him straight in the eye. "How about a little truth for a change?"
It was the Newforester's turn to avert his gaze. "What do you mean?"
"I mean that your name is not really Pias Nav," Jules began. "The initials on your handkerchief are PB."
"I have a lot of enemies. Necessity sometimes requires..."
"And I saw what you did to Rowe Carnery." Jules's voice was icy cold as he uttered those words.
A silence hung in the air for ten seconds. The muscles in Nav's throat tightened, and his fists clenched and unclenched several times. Finally he turned his back on the two of them. "I don't owe any explanations to a couple of cat burglars," he said harshly.
Yvette reached out, grabbed him by one arm and spun him around to face her. Backing him up against the wall, she said, "What about me? Do you owe an explanation to me?"
The two of them stood there, frozen, for what seemed like seven eternities. Their eyes were locked, the expressions on their faces were totally unreadable. It was Nav who backed down first. His shoulders sagged and he stared down at his feet. "Khorosho, Yarmilla," he said in a voice not much above a whisper. "Just for you."
He seated himself on the edge of a trash bin. "You're right about my name-half right, at least. My first name is Pias, but the last name is Belville. I am indeed from Newforest, but until a couple of years ago I wasn't primarily a gambler. I might never even have left Newforest if it weren't for Rowe Carnery.
"I was engaged at the time to a beautiful girl named Mini. I won't bore you by telling you how much I loved her; it was a lot. Miri was returning to Newforest after visiting Append.
She had a considerable fortune in jewels along with her, which she kept in a personal safe that had been specially installed in her cabin. She was the only person aboard who knew how to open it.
"Pirates boarded her ship just before it reached Newforest. They knew they had less than an hour to make their haul before entering Newforest's space and risking an encounter with the Imperial Navy. They killed the captain outright when he swore he didn't know how to open the safe. Miri wasn't so lucky.
"They... questioned her; that's the kindest way I can put it. Mid always was a stubborn woman; she refused to talk. The pirates were in a hurry, and they used very crude but painful tortures. Eventually they had to give up and flee when the Navy boarded the ship, and Miri still had her jewels-for all the good they did her."
The Newforester's fists were clenched, his eyes tightly closed. His breathing was jagged, and it seemed an effort to speak. Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead.
"I couldn't begin to describe what was done to her. It was horrible. They took her back to a hospital on Newforest and wouldn't let me see her until they'd cleaned up the worst of the blood, but even so ... even so..." He choked on the words and had to pause for a few minutes until he could get himself more under control.
"She took three days dying. I was beside her almost all the time. I didn't eat anything. I drank occasional glasses of some liquid they put into my hand, but I don't know what it was. They had her doped up to her earlobes with painkillers, but they couldn't ease the agony in her mind. Every time I looked into her eyes I could see the horror, the pain, the ..."
He broke down completely at this point and began sobbing. Instinctively, Yvette moved over to him. She put her arms around him and held onto him tightly. Pias Belville buried his face in her bosom and wept openly and unashamed for several minutes as Yvette tenderly stroked his hair and made soft, cooing noises. Jules stood to one side, feeling very much an intruder in this scene.
At length Belville pulled his head back. "I must apologize," he said hoarsely. "I've been holding that in for so long, and now..."
"I understand," Yvette soothed. "Just go on with your story when you can."
Belville wiped at his eyes with his sleeve, and after a few seconds got his voice under control. "She did have a few lucid moments, and she described the pirate leader fairly well. She mentioned a pendant he wore on a silver chain around his neck; she described it in detail. After she... she died, I swore to avenge her death. Remember, I told you we've very protective of our women on Newforest. This pirate had committed an un- pardonable sin and caused immense suffering and death to someone I loved. I dedicated my life to returning the favor.
"I left my home and started tracking down this monster on my own. It didn't take me long to learn his name--Rowe Cannery--but getting close to him was another matter. I adopted the personality of Pias Nav, itinerant gambler and layabout; it suited my personality anyway, and I found that people would talk more openly to me if I appeared to be part of their milieu.
