Authors: Piers Anthony
“So you dropped by to apologize,” he asked.
“Kuato wants to see you.” She unlocked Quaid’s handcuffs. “Come on!” She pulled him to his feet and they tore down the corridor.
Richter and Helm ran out of the service elevator. Richter pulled up short at the sight of the bullet hole in Lori’s forehead. The blood drained from his face as he was hit by a wave of disbelief and rage. The last time he had seen her, she had been so warm, so alive, and now . . .
No
, he thought.
Not Lori. Not my Lori!
She had been the best thing that ever happened to him. Smart, beautiful, and great in bed. He could not bear the thought of never holding her again, never seeing her smile, never hearing her sultry voice.
He was filled with a mind-numbing anguish that was quickly replaced by white-hot fury. Hauser had done this. That murdering, traitorous scum! Richter would avenge Lori’s death if it was the last thing he did. He’d rip the bastard’s head off, he’d . . .
Helm touched his shoulder and pointed. Richter saw Quaid and Melina running down the hall. With an incoherent bellow, Richter opened fire, charging after them. Bullets whizzed past Quaid’s ears.
Damn! He had feared there would be more goons erupting from the elevator, so that a gun battle would wipe him and Melina out even if they got Richter and Helm. But it seemed there were just the two men. Now any hesitation, any attempt to get into position to fire accurately, would put them at a fatal disadvantage. They had to keep running.
They came to an
EXIT
door. Melina pulled at it. It refused to open. “Shit!” she exclaimed.
They kept running, having no alternative at the moment. They headed toward the big window at the end of the corridor. Outside the window there was only the red sky and geodesic framework, with no indication of any surface to stand on.
“Now what?” Quaid asked, seeing the dead end coming.
“Jump!” she replied succinctly.
Had he been in better command of his wits, he might have balked, but he remained a bit unbalanced from the knockout. Maybe it was the same with her. Well, if he was going to take a fall, she was the one he wanted to do it with! He remembered the dream—
They leaped together—and crashed through the window. They sailed through the air, and fell, and parts of Quaid’s life passed before his eyes, and he gained a new understanding of what was buried in his mind. It
did
relate to the welfare of mankind!
Then he looked down and saw the rooftop just six feet below. Melina had known of it, obviously. The hotel was a series of terraces built right up next to the dome.
They landed, bounced, scrambled to their feet, and resumed their running. Richter and Helm appeared at the broken window and fired down at them. Then Quaid and Melina dashed out of range around a corner.
Quaid heard the crash as Richter and Helm jumped down to follow. This chase wasn’t over yet!
They ran from roof to roof, dodging to stay out of the line of fire. Fortunately, their pursuers couldn’t fire accurately while running, so were wasting shots.
But soon they found themselves boxed in, as they had been in the hotel, except that this time it was drop-offs that surrounded them, not walls. Where now?
Melina ran full speed toward the edge. Quaid followed with dismay. “Again?”
Evidently so. He hoped she still knew where she was going. Then he saw the dome ahead. He tucked the gun into his waistband. He was sorry he hadn’t been able to keep the plastic gun he had worked so hard to bring; it was a superior weapon.
They reached the edge of the rooftop, leaped, and grabbed onto the scaffolding of the geodesic dome. Again they had found an escape!
As he clung to a beam, Quaid glanced back. He saw Richter and Helm arrive at the edge of the roof. Richter raised his gun to shoot, but Helm smashed his arm down in time for the bullet to discharge into the floor.
“You trying to kill us?” Helm screamed.
Furious, Richter clouted Helm in the head and tried for another shot. Helm struggled fiercely with his much larger boss. “You’ll crack the fucking dome!” he shouted as he pummeled Richter.
True enough, thought Quaid, remembering the scene at the spaceport. A bullet could do it as readily as an explosive mask. The man was a shoot-first fool, as likely to kill an innocent party as the one he was after. But he must have come to his senses because the shot never came.
“By the way,” Quaid gasped as if they were doing this for fun. “Ever hear of a company called Rekall?”
“I used to model for them. Why?”
“Just wondering.” Things were falling into place in his mind, even as they were coming apart in other ways.
Quaid followed Melina as she athletically edged along beams, slid down pipes, and swung from strut to strut. She might look like a woman of leisure, but now she was an acrobat!
But his contortions dislodged the gun at his waistband. Quaid couldn’t catch it; with regret he watched it fall. Melina had either ditched hers on the roof or lost it similarly. Now they had no way to fire back.
Meanwhile Richter and Helm were climbing down the side of the hotel, a much easier and shorter task. They were gaining!
Quaid and Melina dropped to the ground next to a solid wall. Richter and Helm landed almost simultaneously. They ran forward, shooting.
Quaid looked around and saw nowhere to hide. He searched frantically for his dropped pistol, but it was lost amid the materials at the base of the dome, and there was no time to get it anyway. Things looked bad for the home team!
Richter slowed to a walk as he came within range. He leveled his gun, taking more careful aim. He was grinning.
He
intended to take no prisoners!
Then a car screeched around a corner, cutting off Richter and Helm. It stopped in front of Quaid and Melina.
It was Benny, the jivester cabbie! “Need a ride?” he said.
They dived into the cab, tumbling over each other as Benny gunned it and fishtailed away.
“The Last Resort!” Melina gasped. “Quick!”
Richter fired from the curb and the rear window shattered. Quaid pulled Melina down low to avoid the flying glass.
“Jesus!” Benny yelled. “Y’all in trouble?” He put the accelerator to the floor.
Behind them, Richter and Helm clambered into their car and peeled out into traffic, guns blazing.
Benny swerved into the main tunnel. “Whatcha doin’ to me, man! I got six kids to feed!”
Benny made a sharp left into a tubeway that led across the chasm. The motion flung Quaid and Melina together. He wished they could do it deliberately! As it was, he disengaged carefully, not wanting to set off any misunderstandings.
The pavement of this tubeway was not quite even. As the car passed from segment to segment at high speed, lights flashed and the tires made rhythmic sounds.
Calumph, calumph, calumph
, transmitted through the chassis. The effect was oddly soothing.
“You got a gun, Benny?” Quaid asked.
“Under the seat, man.”
Quaid fished under the front passenger seat and found a gun mounted in a concealed sheath. He pulled it out and checked it. It was a pro special, loaded. This cabbie knew how to protect himself when he had to!
He looked back. Richter was leaning out of his car. There was a muzzle flash. Benny’s rearview mirror was blown off. Richter was getting better!
Quaid leaned out a window and fired back, carefully. The shot went true; Richter’s windshield shattered.
The car swerved, but did not go out of control. That meant he hadn’t hit the driver. Too bad. He saw a hand with a gun scraping the glass beads away. Then the fire resumed, from inside the car.
All he had accomplished was to make it easier for Richter to shoot at them! Indeed, it looked as if the man was bringing out heavier artillery. What did he have?
Richter fired. A fender was blasted off the cab. He fired again. Another window went. That was a heavy-duty piece, all right!
Quaid fired back, but his gun now seemed inadequate. Both men in the pursuing car were hunkered down, so he couldn’t get a clear shot, and unless he scored on one of them, he wouldn’t accomplish much. There seemed to be metallic shields guarding the front tires, so the car wasn’t vulnerable to much more damage by his gun. That cannon of Richter’s, however—
Richter fired again. This time the roof was blasted off the cab.
“Fuck!” Benny exclaimed. “The cab ain’t even paid for!”
There was worse coming. Benny’s tire was blasted as they went through a curve. The cab went out of control and flipped over, sliding to a stop in the Venusville Plaza.
Quaid was hardly aware of what he did; probably his Hauser-aspect had taken over again, as it did in utter crisis. He found himself holding Melina, wrapped around her as much as possible, protecting her from the crash.
Before the motion stopped, he acted. “Out!” he snapped. They scrambled under the hanging seats and out through the broken windshield. “Move! Move!” he urged, lurching to his feet and hauling Benny and Melina out.
“Aw, Christ,” Benny groaned. “Now they’re after
me
!”
The three of them started off at a run, barely in time. Richter’s car zoomed out of the blind curve and screeched to a halt. He and Helm emerged, saturating the wreck with gunfire.
CHAPTER 20
Kuato
T
he sound of gunfire must have alerted the bartender at the Last Resort. He held the door open as Melina, Quaid, and Benny dashed up, and he slammed it shut behind them as they spilled inside. Quaid pulled up short, momentarily confused at the scene that greeted him.
Tony and the other miners had lifted their table and, with it, a piece of the floor. A hole gaped beneath. Was this an escape route of some kind?
Melina knew exactly what it was. She climbed into the hole and disappeared into the darkness. Benny followed, throwing terrified glances over his shoulder. Quaid snapped out of his stasis and quickly lowered himself into the hole.
The miners replaced the table and resumed their game of poker just as Richter, Helm, and six soldiers charged into the bar, loaded for bear.
The card players looked at the armed men with mild curiosity. The scene was as quiet and peaceful as a bridge club on a slow Thursday afternoon, but Richter was not to be fooled. He knew that these subhuman creatures were protecting the man who had killed Lori and, by that action, they had forfeited their right to live. He didn’t care how many of them he had to kill in order to get the information he needed.
He grabbed Mary and held his gun to her head. It was the same gun that had taken the roof off of Benny’s cab. “Where’d they go?” he demanded.
“Who? I don’t know wha—” Mary’s head was blown from her shoulders. Richter threw her body aside and grabbed Thumbelina.
“Maybe
you
know,” he suggested, his voice cold with menace.
Before she could respond, Tony leaped in a flying tackle and knocked Richter to the floor. As Helm ran forward to take aim at Tony, Thumbelina reached up, gutting him from crotch to sternum with a bowie knife.
It was like setting a match to a keg of powder. The rest of the miners exploded into action, attacking the soldiers with fists, knives, guns, bottles, and beer mugs. By the time Richter struggled free of Tony’s grip, he saw that half of his men had been wiped out.
He dived through a window, guns firing after him. A large number of soldiers had assembled at the sound of gunfire and they covered his retreat with a hail of bullets.
Scuttling behind a barricade of cars wrecks and overflowing dumpsters, Richter made it to where a military vehicle had pulled up to disgorge more soldiers. Bullets whizzed by his ears as he dodged, feinted, and rolled his way toward the truck. It had a rocket launcher. Richter’s eyes gleamed. That would do the trick.
“You! Over here!” he commanded. He directed the launcher setup and was about to give the order to fire, when a soldier handed him a field videophone.
“Cohaagen,” the soldier said.
Richter gnashed his teeth as he took the call. “Sir . . .” he began, but Cohaagen interrupted him.
“Stop fighting and pull out.”
No, no, no, this couldn’t be happening. “They’re protecting Quaid!” Richter protested, his voice cracking with anger and astonishment.
“Perfect!” said Cohaagen. “Get out of Sector G. Now.” Before Richter could respond, Cohaagen added: “Don’t
think
. Do it.”
Richter saw the look in Cohaagen’s eye and choked back a retort. Cohaagen had something up his sleeve. Richter didn’t know what it was, but he knew it would be worse than anything the rocket launcher could propel. He followed orders.
Quaid dropped from the shaft into a tunnel and followed Melina and Benny. The tunnel appeared to be one artery of the vast mining complex that spread beneath the city in all directions. His suspicion was confirmed as he ran past miners chipping away at the rock walls with drill hammers. The miners ignored him. They seemed to be used to such sights.
The tunnel branched off into several others at an intersection on the far side of Venusville. Melina paused there for a brief moment to catch her breath, and almost stopped breathing altogether when a mechanical shudder shook the ground beneath their feet.
“My God,” she said, aghast. “The emergency pressure doors! They’re sealing us off from the rest of the city!”
No sooner had she spoken than—SQURRCHANG! A featureless metal door descended from the ceiling, closing the entrance to one of the tunnels in front of them. They rushed to the next one—too late!
Only one tunnel remained open. With the speed of desperation, they crouched, rolled, and dived under the last door just before it slammed into place. They’d made it!
The rebel survivors of the battle of The Last Resort peered cautiously though the jagged shards of glass that protruded from the bar’s shattered window frames. The soldiers had ceased firing a short time ago and now they appeared to be packing up and beating an orderly retreat. The rebels didn’t know what to make of it.
As the soldiers disappeared from view, the people of Venusville began emerging from whatever hole they’d hidden in during the battle. They spoke softly. Some looked dazed. Others looked suspicious. They were startled when the pressure doors clanged into place and no one knew what to expect next. A crowd gathered in the plaza, but it was strangely hushed. Then it got even quieter.