The Avenger 18 - Death in Slow Motion (20 page)

There was a silence, the silence about a charge of explosive just before it goes off.

Then the older man swore hoarsely in an alien tongue and grabbed for his side pocket. In mounting frenzy, his hands went through the rest of his tattered pockets. And they came out empty.

“You . . . you swine!” he panted. “You knew I was the leader instead of a victim! You took that bottle from my pocket when you untied me down there!”

Benson said nothing. His eyes seemed to reach physically up and pierce the two stricken faces.

“Give me that! Throw it up here or we’ll blast you all to—”

“There is nothing to throw, I’m afraid,” came Dick’s calm voice. At the same time he waved backward with his hand; and his crew obediently moved to a far wall out of vision of the grilled hole in the ceiling. “My friends and I shared the bottle a few minutes ago. All of it!”

The younger man screamed. It was like the shriek of a woman drowning in a boiling sea.

“Franz!” he yelled. “The antidote. He . . . he— Can you get more?”

“No!” The other man’s voice was so tremulous that the words could hardly be made out. “There is no more. Only that, which should have been enough. It would take weeks, months, to—kill them! All of them!”

The two began shooting, wildly, insanely. But The Avenger had leaped back to where the rest stood, like a pale-gray cougar. And at that point, the men above could not see. They emptied their guns, reaching down through the grating and firing blindly all around! Several of their doomed gang screamed and fell. But The Avenger and his band were not hit.

Then there were two more shots. Just two, in the room above. They were different in pitch, and they were a little muffled.

The aides of The Avenger looked at each other.

“They preferred a quick death to a lingering one,” said Mac, in a low, hushed tone. Through the grating sagged a limp arm. The hand held a smoking gun. The fingers uncurled slowly as they watched, and the gun dropped to the floor beneath.

Nellie sighed.

“They signed their own death warrants. As killers who fight against you always do.” She stared at Benson. For the first time since she had known him she saw on his face tiny pin points of moisture. And she knew then what the rest still hadn’t guessed.

Not till a moment ago had Dick been sure that was the antidote, which he had taken from Old Mitch’s pocket. He had deduced that there must be an antidote, because the man had twice been ill and twice recovered. But he had not been sure, till the two went crazy with fear, that the vile purplish stuff was it—and not some unknown poison.

“The job is done,” said Nellie, in a tired, flat tone, weak with nerve strain. “We can break out of here at our leisure. Mac and Smitty will get well. But the others, the factory people—”

“There will be enough droplets left in the bottom of the bottle,” said The Avenger, eyes never colder, “for me to analyze the antidote and quickly reproduce it. We can save most of the victims, if not all.”

He turned to the horror-crazed outlanders and spoke to each in his own dialect. He commanded them to build a living pyramid, so Smitty could drag himself to the bars in the ceiling, which his ponderous strength could bend aside.

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