Eric Russell - Wasp

The reply wasn’t audible but the question was more than enough.

“Jump to it!” he urged. “ Run? ”

They sprinted to the cars, spurred on by expectation of immediate trouble. A third machine now stood behind their own two, a big ugly dyno with nobody at the wheel. Lithar and Brank watched them anxiously, opened the doors in readiness. Scrambling into the leading dyno, Skriva started its motor while Gurd went through the back door and practically flung himself into Lithar’s lap. Behind, the other two piled into the rear of Brank’s car.

Mowry gasped at Skriva, “Wait a moment while I see if I can grab theirs—it’ll delay the chase.”

So saying he raced to the third car, frantically tugged at its handle. It refused to budge. Just then the jail’s door opened and somebody roared, “Halt! Halt or we—” Brank promptly stuck an arm out his open window, flicked four quick shots toward the door-gap and missed each time. But it was sufficient to make the shouter dive for cover. Mowry pelted back to the leading dyno and fell in beside Skriva.

“The cursed thing is locked. Let’s get out of here.”

The car surged forward, tore down the road, Brank accelerated after them. Watching through the rear window, Mowry saw several figures bolt out the jail and waste precious moments fumbling by their dyno before they got in.

“They’re after us,” he told Skriva. “And they’ll be bawling their heads off over the radio.”

“Yar, but they haven’t got us yet.”

Gurd said, “Did nobody think to bring a spare gun?”

“Take mine,” responded Lithar, handing it over.

Cuddling it in an eager fist, Gurd grinned at him unpleasantly.

“Don’t want to be caught with it on you, hi? Rather it was me than you, hi? Typical wert, aren’t you?”

“Shut up!” snarled Lithar.

“Look who’s telling me to shut up,” Gurd invited. He was talking thickly, as if something had gone wrong with his palate. “He’s making a stack of money out of me else he wouldn’t be here at all. He’d be safe at home checking his stocks of illegal zith while the Kaitempi belted me over the gullet. And he tells me to shut up.” Leaning forward, he tapped Mowry on the shoulder with the barrel of the gun. “How much is he making out of this, Mashambigab? How much are you giving—”

He swayed wildly and clutched for a hold as the car rocked around a corner, raced down a narrower road, turned sharp right and then sharp left. Brank’s car took the same corner at the same speed, made the right turn but not the left one. It rushed straight on and vanished from sight. They turned again into a one-way alley, cut through to the next road. There was now no sign of pursuit.

“We’ve lost Brank,” Mowry told Skriva. “Looks like we’ve dropped the Kaitempi too.”

“It’s a safe bet they’re chasing Brank. They were closer to him and they had to follow someone when we split up. Suits us, doesn’t it. ?”

Mowry said nothing.

“A lousy wert tells me to shut up,” mumbled Gurd. Swiftly they zig-zagged through a dozen side-streets, still without encountering a radio alarmed patrol-car. As they squealed around the last corner near to where their own cars were parked there sounded a sharp, hard crack in the rear. Mowry looked back expecting to find a loaded cruizer closing up on them. There was no car behind. Lithar was lying on his side apparently asleep. He had a neat hole above his right ear. A thin trickle of purplish blood was seeping out of it.

Gurd smirked at Mowry and said, “I’ve shut him up, for keeps.”

“Now we’re carrying a corpse,” complained Mowry. “As if we haven’t trouble enough. Where’s the sense—”

Skriva interrupted with, “Crack shots, the Kaitempi. Pity they got Lithar—he was just the sweetest wert on Jaimec.”

He braked hard, jumped out, ran across the lot and clambered into his own dyno. Gurd followed, the gun openly in his hand and not caring who noticed it. Mowry stopped by the window as the machine started up.

“What about Brank?”

“What about him?” echoed Skriva.

“If we both beat it he’ll get here and find no chance to switch over.”

“What, in a city crammed with dynos?” He let the car edge forward. “Brank’s not here. That’s his woe. Let him cope with his own troubles. We’re beating it someplace safe while the going is good. You follow us.”

With that he drove off. Mowry gave him a four hundred yards lead, droned along behind while the distance between them slowly increased. Should he let Skriva lead him to a hideout or not? There seemed little point in following to yet another rat-hole. The jail job had been done and he’d achieved his purpose of stirring up a greater ruckus. There were no werts to pay off; Brank had got himself lost and Lithar was dead. If he wanted to regain contact with Gurd and Skriva he could use that telephone number or if, as was likely, it was no longer valid he could employ their secret post-office under the marker.

Other considerations also decided him to drop the brothers for the time being. For one, the Colonel Halopti identity wouldn’t be worth a hoot after they’d wasted a few hours checking through official channels to establish its falsity. That would be by nightfall at latest. Once again Pertane was becoming too hot to hold him. He’d better get out before it was too late.

For another, he was overdue to beam a report and his conscience was pricking him about his refusal to do so last time. If he didn’t send one soon he might never be able to transmit one at all. And Terra was entitled to be kept informed.

By this time the other car had shrunk with distance. Turning off to the right, he circled back into the city. At once he noticed a great change of atmosphere. There were far more police on the streets and now their number had been augmented by fully armed troops. Patrol-cars swarmed like flies though none saw fit to stop and question him. On the pavements were less pedestrians than usual and these hurried along looking furtive, fearful, grim or bewildered.

Stopping by the kerb outside a business block he lolled in his seat as if waiting for someone while he watched what was taking place on the street. The police, some uniformed and some in plain clothes, were all in pairs. The troops were in groups of six. Their sole occupation appeared to be that of staring accusatively at everyone who passed by, holding up any individual whose looks they didn’t like, questioning and searching him: They also took particular note of cars, studying the occupants and eyeing the plate-numbers.

In the time that Mowry sat there he and his car were given the sharp lookover at least twenty times. He endured it with an air of complete boredom and evidently passed muster because nobody took it further and questioned him. But that couldn’t go on for ever. Somebody more officious than the rest would pick on him merely because the others had not done so. He was tempting fate by staying there.

So he moved off, driving carefully to avoid the attention of numerous cruizers. Something had broken loose, no doubt of that. It was written on the moody faces of the public. He wondered whether the government had been driven to admit a series of reverses in the space-war. Or perhaps the rumours he’d spread about Shugruma had come close enough to the truth to make authority concede the facts. Or maybe a couple of exceedingly important bureaucrats had tried to open mailed packages and splattered themselves over the ceiling, thus creating a tremendous wave of panic among the powers-that-be. One thing was certain: the recent jailbreak could not be solely responsible for the present state of affairs though possibly it may have triggered it into existence.