Timothy Zahn - Conquerors' Pride

He crossed the social room back toward his bedroom. "What of me?" Fibbit asked, coming up tentatively behind him.

"That's up to you," Cavanagh told her, half closing the bedroom door behind him and pulling off his robe. "We have an errand on Dorcas, but afterward we'll be happy to take you back to Ulu. Otherwise, you can wait here for Bronski or the Mrachanis to send you home directly. It's your choice."

The Sanduul shook her head violently. "I do not trust Bronski," she said emphatically. "And I am now afraid of the Mrachanis. Yet I will put you in danger with all of them if I accompany you."

"Don't worry about it," Cavanagh assured her, passing up the clothing he'd worn yesterday in favor of a simple mechanic's jumpsuit they'd brought up from the car's storage case when they'd checked in. Not exactly the sort of thing a former NorCoord Parlimin usually wore, but it was comfortable and went on quickly, and for the moment that was more important than fashion. "Bronski can make veiled threats until the moose go over the mountain, but the simple fact is that he hasn't got a legal leg to kick with. And he knows it."

"But—"

"Sir?" Kolchin said, stepping to the half-open doorway. In the dim light his expression looked grim. "We've got trouble. I took a look out the door, and there seems to be an argument going on down the hall by the elevators. Bronski's people and a pair of Bhurtala."

Cavanagh whistled soundlessly between his lips. "Bhurtala?"

Kolchin nodded. "The argument seems to be getting louder, too. We ought to try and get out of here before the shooting starts."

"Indeed," Cavanagh agreed, sitting down on the bed and starting to pull on his half boots. Confrontations between humans and Bhurtala had a bad tendency to end in violence. Especially when the human side of the confrontation had people like Bronski aboard. "Any thoughts on how best to get off the floor?"

"Well, we're not going by elevator, that's for sure," Kolchin said. "We could try for the stairs, but I think we'd do better to take the emergency drop chutes. Probably set off an alarm, but it'll be a lot faster. There's also a better chance Bronski won't have people watching the other end, like he might have at the stairways."

"Sounds good," Cavanagh said, feeling his stomach tighten. Drop chutes, like most emergency equipment, were something one never expected to actually use. He'd never used one, or even known anyone who had, and he wasn't really anxious to start now. "Where are the chutes?"

"The nearest is about three meters down the hall. Should be easy to make, even if Bronski and the Bhurtala stop arguing long enough to notice us."

A spidery hand touched Cavanagh's arm. "Is this bad, Cavanagh?" Fibbit asked hesitantly. "What are Bhurtala?"

"Big, strong creatures with a rather violent dislike for humans," Cavanagh told her. "Don't worry, though, we'll be all right."

"They dislike humans?" Fibbit repeated, her face a mirror of astonishment.

"Intensely," Cavanagh said. "Comes of our trying once too often to remake their culture to suit the more self-righteous and meddlesome of our leaders."

"It's not just humans," Kolchin added. "They don't like anyone else much, either. I don't know what the Mrachanis are thinking, letting them wander loose around Mig-Ka City like this."

"Fortunately, that's not our problem," Cavanagh said, getting to his feet. "Let's go."

Hill had cracked open the door and was waiting there with his gun at the ready as the others came up. Through the narrow gap, Cavanagh could hear the indistinct sound of voices coming from the end of the hall. "They still at it?" he asked.

"Yes, and they're getting louder," Hill said. "Sounds like the Bhurtala have gotten it into their thick heads that humans shouldn't be leaving the hotel at this hour. Bronski's arguing the point with them."

"Any sign of hotel security?"

"Not yet."

"Probably staying out of it on purpose," Kolchin said. "All right, I'll go out first and secure the chute area. Lord Cavanagh, you and Fibbit will follow at my signal. Hill will backstop from the doorway; if the thing breaks, I'll lay down cover fire. Everyone got it? Okay, Hill, give me some door."

Hill let the door open all the way, dropping down to one knee in the opening, his gun gripped ready in his left hand as he peered out toward the sounds of argument coming from their right. Sliding past him, Kolchin slipped silently out to the left. Cavanagh eased forward and craned his neck for a look.

They were there, all right, barely fifteen meters away: Bronski and his three men arrayed in a line opposite a pair of squat, meter-wide Bhurtala who had planted themselves squarely in front of the elevator bank. Three of the humans—all but Lee—had small flechette guns pointed at their challengers, a move that struck Cavanagh as more provocative than it was prudent. Bhurtala skin had elephantine thickness and density, and standard-load flechettes didn't do a lot of good against it.

From behind him came a soft double snap of fingers. "Okay," Hill said, dropping the muzzle of his gun into ready position. "Go."

Clenching his teeth, Cavanagh sidled out into the hall, Fibbit almost walking on his heels as she huddled close behind him. Kolchin was waiting by the shallow alcove that marked the chute doorway entrance, his eyes focused past them at the elevators. Cavanagh got one step—two—

"Hey!" someone shouted from behind him. "There's the Sanduul—"

And abruptly, the hall lit up like the inside of a firecracker as a thunderclap of sound slammed into Cavanagh, picking him up and throwing him toward the floor.

A hand caught his arm before he made it all the way down, hauling him upright again and half dragging him another step forward. "Come on!" a voice—Kolchin's?—shouted through the ringing in his ears. "Here's the door—go!"

There was another explosion, this one sounding more distant in his stunned hearing. In the accompanying flash of light he saw that Kolchin was shoving him toward one of the three slender poles of the drop chute, and he got his hands out in front of him just in time to grab it as his stumbling feet hit the small foot platform.

And then the memory-metal safety cage had whipped into position around him and he was dropping nearly free fall through the darkness. Beneath him came the rush of air and the distant wail of emergency sirens; above him, closer but still sounding distant, was what sounded like a shrill whine of fear or exhilaration. Far overhead now came the sound and dim flash of a third explosion—

And a heartbeat later his weight suddenly came back as the platform began its breakneck deceleration. He gripped the pole tightly, not trusting the safety cage enough to lean his weight against it, wondering just how fail-safe these things really were....

With a last-second jolt and a brief metallic squeak the platform surged to a halt. A dark, moaning shape dropped to the floor beside him as the safety cage retracted once again. Straight ahead, outlined by flashing red lights, was a door; prying his hands off the pole, Cavanagh headed that direction, staggering slightly from the vertigo of the ride down and the sonic-shock aftereffects of the multiple explosions up above. The sections of the door split smoothly apart as his shoulder hit it, dumping him unceremoniously outside. Catching his balance, he looked around.

He was in the narrow alleyway that ran between the hotel and the covered entrance ramp of the parking/storage building beside it. At this hour of the morning it was only dimly lit, and as near as he could tell, it was deserted.

"Cavanagh?" a shaking Duulian voice called weakly from the doorway. "Where are you?"

"I'm right here, Fibbit," Cavanagh said, stepping back to take the arm groping blindly through the split doorway. He'd forgotten what poor night vision Sanduuli had; no wonder she'd been wailing so loudly on the way down. He pulled the door open a little more, half helping, half pulling Fibbit through—