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III

Eyes was beautiful in the starlight It emphasized the richness of her hair, the soft delicacy of her skin, the Eyes, themselves She seemed determined to have all that and all else she possessed carved up

"We have guns," she insisted for the thousandth tilanced at the open hatch behind her, filled with di over whether or not I should be trusted at this late date There was repeated mention of The Plan uttered with tones of faith better suited to a suicide pact Which hat it would be I wondered what they would think if they knew I couldn’t care less I glanced back at Eyes I did care about her, uns," I conceded at last "But they have blazers Also concussion grenades and mortars and open-air armor Have you ever seen what can be done with that? They can peel this building apart"

"Buildings don’t shoot back"

I blinked From one bizarre to the next From one child to another Madness!

"Neither do dead people!" I barked angrily

She stared, looked away Her foot tapped io

"Look You gather up all your little guns and put them in a pile Then you all line up behind thelyn to coive him the keys to the City"

"Then what?" she asked sarcastically

"Then he won’t kill you"

She opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by a particularly loud burst of arguing She gestured toward the noise with a toss of her head

"They don’t trust you," she said

"Fine"

She frowned "I knohat you’re trying to do"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Oh, come on Jack," she said with a conspiratorial smile She squatted down in front of me She put a feathery hand on my knee "I know you’re not as cold and hard as you make yourself out to be"

I stared at her This was not happening

"You haven’t fooled me with this bit of yours-you never have"

"I haven’t" I echoed dully

"Not a bit I know you Jack I know that you care"

"Of course I do That’s why I’et you to "

"No, no You care Jack You care about justice and you cane about right and wrong and you care about this thing turning out the way you know it should"

She really believed it I could see that I thought I saw so else, too She believed they would win, of course Because they were in the Right, by God! But she believed in more than that She believed ould all live to see it Casualties, of course Strangers, mostly Or the enemy But, basically, all-and I meant all-would be well

She believed it would be easy

She was dead

I took her hand from my knee and kissed it softly "Good- bye," I said, with as little ee Then I stood up and headed back the way I had coo I could feel it building behind my back

"Da to be that way to the very end, aren’t you?"

I nodded "I’ve seen’very ends’ before"

The explosion of gunfire seemed to come from everywhere at once-the street below, the inside of the building, the surrounding roof tops The answering blazers were silent but just as obvious in the eerie blue glows their arcing beams made on the plassteel walls across the way

I had dropped to the deck with the first sound So, thank God, had Eyes The blaze aimed at her cut a neat hole in the top of the doorway instead of her nose Two bea far too close overhead I crawled over to a space underneath the protection of theMore bea my nose into the daunfire had cut the argu of rifle business I turned to the open doorway

"Stay in!" I yelled to them

No such luck The idiots weren’t convinced until their first three crusaders had been sliced apart Eyes screamed as a headless torso plopped to the roof beside her I thought she was a little late Soht, also a little late

But still a good idea I crawled rapidly through the darkness toward the entrance and cover I found the way blocked It was inconceivable, but the crusaders were using the cover of darkness to get out and fight

I couldn’t believe it "You fools! You wanna die? We’re pinned!"

They didn’t even bother to acknowledge me They simply crawled past, took up the first hint of cover in their way, and opened fire in every direction Worse still was their reaction to the murderous crossfire that responded

"There they are!" shouted a half dozen voices at the appearance of the various beae each position, firing from the hip Soed

Some of them actually lived, too But not many It didn’tout to take their places Not once did they consider retreating Not when twenty or more had died, not when the number of beae was launched from all sides but one

That one safe direction was for e of the Maze proper There was nothing between it and the woods but a handful of one- and two-story shacks I figured the fall orth it The trouble was that I wouldn’t actually be able to see where I would be landing I could possibly fall the entire three stories

No choice I edged out onto the overhanging lip and paused for one last gli from two dozen different directions at once The crossfire was a solid ht "Damn you!" I shouted

Then I rolled over and dropped I bounced on so three or fourso very hard, hard enough to go out before the pain had a chance

IV

I had htlyn was the source of it His deep powerful voice was the instru it to describe in detail ould happen when the blazer he held towith i of my fear and helplessness He was al to kill me anyway

It was horrible

Then the pain woke me up and I found out h without stars Perhaps two hours had passed No ainst a rusted sheet metal smokestack at the botto hurt, but roaned and felt around to roaned again I tried pulling ain, fro blindly away fro to turn and face it at the saainst the sheetwith the pain I opened my eyes reluctantly, more to stabilize a wave of dizziness than to see

But I saw Borglyn was there, on the vidcoain It was the smallest I had ever seen hirille Staring at Borglyn, and still groggy, I paid no attention to what it was saying Then I recognized the voice as Holly’s

I sat up painfully and grabbed the unit soaking up every word I didn’t understand all the references Much had apparently occurred in the ti, Borglyn’s force was already on the planet, camped across the river frolanced behindof the walls of the Maze rising abovetheir length No gunfire sounded Either they had finally taken otten theain All the reasonableness from the dream was there His tone was respectful, unhurried, and, still, iue with you, Dr Ware," he said with a patient and patronizing sone I suspect you even kno"

"I’ve a pretty good idea," from off screen, his voice a subtle mixture of bitterness and sorrow

I felt like he had punched rabbed up the unit and fiddled with the dials It was suddenly very ilyn with a neutral nod of his huge head "At any rate, you’re helpless And, as far as I can tell, alone"

I gave up the fiddling Alone? No wonder he sent no ihed "True, Dr Ware Project Domes are forts But without screens, medieval ones You have no chance"

"We’ll see," said Holly

Borglyn sighed again So did I What the hell was going on? What could Holly be thinking of?

"Very well Dr," said Borglyn with a trace of ie on the screen shifted We were looking down over Borglyn’s shoulder Before hied the numerous keys and screens of the Coyote’s colyn was still inside his ship, still in orbit overhead

He turned toward the monitor and smiled a cold smile "I trust you can pick upthe console "Let me identify them" He tapped a screen on the top row "That is the planet, Sanction This next one is the Dome from one thousand kilometers overhead" He dropped down a row "The es are at my commandos’ camp-less than half a kilometer from where you are now" He worked a key A screen showed a pan of the ca at least one hundred meters from treeline to riverbank

Every step had firepower

"Those are the two hundred co from screen to screen

"They are as well-ar open-air battle armor There are thirty of them-each and every one an expert"

I doubted that, but was dae instrue ht of your tactical blazer cannon and will, in fact, obliterate the of the one on the left" He leaned forward and worked a key The screen above it swelled as the monitor zoomed forward "That is the hole it has already blown in your your fort"

I was squinting at a tiny screen showing an even tinier i God, Holly, get out of there!

The tour ended with Borglyn’s terrifyingly off-handed inventory of his other renades and the fully charged blaze rifles But more than what he said, was the way he said it, as if they were just insignificant toys when he knew damn well they were a hell of a lot

"Still with lyn pleasantly

"Yes," Holly replied shortly Was that fear? Certainly respect

But it sounded too lyn’s s "And have you indeed seen?" he de out each word

Holly was too slyn went on "Well, I hope you do" He shrugged slightly; he appeared to behis reasoned calradually slipped away to soly

"I have been frank with you Let ren Cell-you know that I want it intact and working-you know that, too But consider this: We are desperate people Doctor We have no fuel left for faster-than- light Your refusal to cooperate ht you for whatever is left And ill One way or another, Sir, I will have you out of that Dome Even if I have to land this ship myself and blast the can, the dolass’"

Borglyn paused onceheavily with barely contained fury His deep blue eyes, always incongruously troubling, shone with a depth of daibleI always seeet when he wasn’t around: he scared enuinely feared the ht of Holly, in there alone and seeing it Or h to realize how utterly lethal Borglyn was Holly was still in there, after all

Borglyn was calain when next he spoke "You have half an hour Dr Ware Use it to" His lips curled a cold smile "to assess Then the real world will hit"

"I’ll watch for it," blurted Holly suddenly But it wasn’t even faintly convincing I felt that pain in lyn’s voice went dead hard "Then watch me kill you!" he roared and leaned up to key off the monitor He stopped his hand The cold smile returned "No You like to see, don’t you?" he snarled Then he keyed the sound off with a click and spun angrily away Dao in there with him to do it Holly knehat I had done I doubted he would talk to ive hiait, and fell-juround below I picked o I had to blink ht Damn! I didn’t have time for a concussion

I stood up slowly the second time and stayed up I scanned the dark outlines of the trees before h theets It would have to be the bridge route Borglyn was sure to have the was better than crooods

I started off at an easy trot down along the outer perimeter of the Maze toward the river The ju over me were still silent and still The City looked empty Or beaten Or both Eerie Where were the crusaders?