Keith Laumer - Assignment in Nowhere

“I think that’s it. We’d better try another alley and see if we can’t sneak up on it from behind. They probably have guards on the shuttle.”

“We’ll soon know.” A narrow opening just ahead seemed to lead back into the heart of the block of masonry. We followed it, emerged in a dead end, from which an arched opening like a sewage tunnel led off into utter darkness.

“Let’s try that route,” Dzok suggested. “It seems to lead in the right general direction.”

“What if it’s somebody’s bedroom?” T eyed the looming building; the crudely mortared walls gave no hint of interior function. The Hagroon knew only one style of construction: solid-rock Gothic.

“In that case, we’ll beat a hasty retreat.”

“Somehow the thought of pounding through these dark alleys with a horde of aroused Hagroon at my heels lacks appeal,” I said. “But I guess we can give it a try.” I moved to the archway, peered inside, then took the plunge. My shoes seemed loud on the rough floor. Behind me I could hear Dzok’s breathing. The last glimmer of light faded behind us. I was feeling my way with a hand against the wall now. We went on for what seemed a long time.

“Hssst!” Dzok’s hand touched my shoulder. “I think we’ve taken a wrong turning somewhere, old boy…”

“Yeah…” I thought it over. “We’d better go back.”

For another ten minutes we groped our way back in the dark, as silently as possible. Then Dzok halted. I came up behind him.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“Shhh.”

I heard it then: a very faint sound of feet shuffling. Then a glow of light sprang up around a curve ahead, showing a dark doorway across the passage.

“In there,” Dzok whispered, and dived for it. I followed, slammed against him. There was a sound of heavy breathing nearby.

“What was that you said about bedrooms?” he murmured in my ear.

The breathing snorted into a resonant snore, followed by gulping sounds. I could hear a heavy body moving, the rustle of disturbed rubbish. Then an eerie silence settled.

Suddenly Dzok moved. I heard something clatter in the far corner of the room. His hand grabbed at me, pulling me along. I stumbled over things, heard his hand rasping on stone, then we were flat against the wall. A big Hagroon body rose up, moved into the light from the open door through which we had entered. Another of the shaggy figures appeared outside; this would be the one we had first heard in the alley. The two exchanged guttural growls. The nearer one turned back into the room—and abruptly the chamber was flooded with wan light. I saw that Dzok and I were in an alcove that partly concealed us from view from the door. The Hagroon squinted against the light, half-turned away—then whirled back as he saw us. Dzok jumped. The gun slapped my hand—but Dzok was past him, diving for another opening. I was behind him, ducking under the Hagroon’s belated grab, then pelting along a tunnel toward a faint glow at the far end, Dzok bounding ten yards in the lead. There were yells behind us, a horrible barking roar, the pound of feet. I hadn’t wanted a horde of trolls chasing me through the dark—but here I was anyway.

Ahead, Dzok leaped out into the open, skidded to a halt, looked both ways, then pointed, and was gone. I raced out into the open alley, saw Dzok charging straight at a pair of Hagroon in guards’ bangles—and beyond him, the dark rectangular bulk of the shuttle. The agent yelled. I recognized the grunts and croaks of the Hagroon language. The two guards hesitated. One pointed at me, started forward, the other spread his arms, barked something at Dzok. The latter, still coming on full tilt, straight-armed the heavier humanoid, dodged aside as the Hagroon staggered back, and made for the shuttle. I brought the slug gun up, fired at extreme range, saw the Hagroon bounce back, slam against the wall, then reach—but I was past him. Dzok’s opponent saw me, dithered for a moment, then whirled toward me. I fired—and missed, tried to twist aside, slipped, went down and skidded under the Hagroon’s grasp, leaving a sleeve from my coat dangling in his hands. I scrambled, made it to all fours, dived for the open entry to the shuttle. Dzok’s hand shot out, hauled me inside, and the door banged behind me as the sentry hit it like a charging rhino.

Dzok whirled to the operator’s seat.

“Great Scott!” he yelled. “The control lever’s broken off short!” The shuttle was rocking under blows at the entry port. Dzok gripped the edge of the panel with his one good hand; the muscles of his shoulder bunched, and with one heave, he tore it away, exposing tight-packed electronic components.

“Quick, Anglic!” he snapped. “The leads there—cross them!” I wedged myself in beside him, grabbed two heavy insulated cables, twisted their ends together. Following the agent’s barked instructions, I ripped wires loose, made hasty connections from a massive coil—which I recognized as an M-C field energizer—to a boxed unit like a fifty KW transformer. Dzok reached past me, jammed a frayed cable end against a heavy bus bar. With a shower of blue and yellow sparks, copper welded to steel. A deep hum started up; abruptly the shattering blows at the entry ceased. I felt the familiar tension of the M-G field close in around me. I let out a long sigh, slumped back in the chair.

“Close, Anglic,” Dzok sighed, “But we’re clear now…” I looked over at him, saw his yellowish eyes waver and half-close; then he fell sideways into my lap.

Dzok was lying where I had dragged him, in deep grass under a small, leafy tree, his chest rising and falling in the quick, shallow, almost panting, breathing of his kind.

The shuttle rested fifty feet away, up against a rocky escarpment at the top of which a grey, chimp-sized ape perched, scratching thoughtfully and gazing down at us. My clothes were spread on the grass along with what remained of Dzok’s whites. I had given them a scrubbing in the sandy-bedded stream that flowed nearby. I had also inventoried my wounds, found nothing worse than cuts, scrapes and bruises.

The agent rolled over on his side, groaned, winced in his sleep as his weight pressed against his bound arm; then his eyes opened.

“Welcome back,” I said. “Feel better?”

He groaned again. His pale tongue came out, touched his thin, blackish lips.

“As soon as I’m home again I shall definitely resign my commission,” he croaked. He moved to ease the arm, lifted it with his good hand and laid it across his chest.

“This member seems to belong to someone else,” he groaned. “Someone who died horribly.”

“Maybe I’d better try to set it.”

He shook his head. “Where are we, Anglic?”

“The name’s Bayard. As to where we are, your guess is better than mine, I hope. I piled the scout along full tilt for about five hours, then took a chance and dropped in here to wait for you to come around. You must have been in worse shape than you told me.”

“I was close to the end of my resources,” the agent admitted. “I’d been beaten pretty badly on three occasions, and my food pellets were running low. I’d been on short rations for about a week.”

“How the devil did you manage to stay on your feet—and climb, and fight, and run—and with a broken arm?”

“Small credit to me, old fellow. Merely a matter of triggering certain emergency metabolic stimulators. Hypnotics, you know.” His eyes took in the scene. “Pretty place. No sign of our former hosts?”

“Not yet. It’s been about four hours since we arrived.”

“I think we’re safe from intrusion. From what little we’d learned of them, they have very poor Web instrumentation. They won’t trail us.” He studied the ragged skyline.