CHAPTER VIII
WRITE IT IN BLOOD!
Feet pounded behind Ross in the darkness of the warehouse. Dropping flat, he rolled till he bumped against stacked transit cases.
Now, from the office area, a hand torch flicked this way and that, its hard, bright cone of light lancing through the murk.
Ross held his breath. When the beam passed over him and moved on, he wormed his way swiftly along the cases and into the first cross-aisle.
More lights. More wary shuffling. Hastily, Ross made his way to the next longitudinal aisle, then doubled back in the direction of the offices once more.
Almost in the same instant, Pike Mawson's voice cut through the stillness: "Stop! Both of you!" His words were clipped, incisive.
Ross froze in his tracks. His palms were slick with sweat as they pressed flat against the transit cases.
Mawson again: "Get back here, you fools! Don't you understand? That chitza's trying to feint us away from the entrance so he can blast out!"
From beyond Mawson, a second voice mumbled unclear syllables.
"Let him hide!" Mawson cut in sharply. "He'll soon tire of it. The thing to remember is that there's no way out of this place except through the office area; I made sure of that before we took it over. So as long as we stay at this end, our fine friend can't escape."
A burst of guttural elation. Ross' pursuers drew back into the brightly-lighted offices.
For a long moment Ross stood unmoving. Then, as the last echo of the others' clumping footsteps died and the darkness closed in on taut, vibrant silence, he turned. His face was pale and drawn, his breathing shallow, his mouth a thin, grim line.
Moving down the aisle cat-silent, he groped his way to the place his earlier foe had died beside the stacked plastidrums of steron.
Steron, with its deadly methane fumes, and high combustibility, and flaring, 4000-degree heat.
Ross' lips twisted. Dragging out one of the drums, he jerked savagely at the opener tab.
The cap tore away. With a momentary faint hiss of gas escaping, steron fumes spurted forth in a choking, all-enveloping rush.
Ross grinned mirthlessly. With swift efficiency, he dragged out a second drum and opened it also. Then a third ... a fourth....
Turning this last tank on its side, he rolled it full-tilt down the aisle towards the offices, a trail of fumes and liquid spilling out in its wake.
Now, drawing back into a cross-aisle, Ross flicked his flamer and tossed it out onto the snake-like steron trail.
The fumes caught even before the flamer struck the floor. With a roar like the gush of a power hose, fire leaped back to the three open drums.
The explosion as they ignited sprayed flame in a mad starburst that illumined the whole central section of the warehouse. In seconds a thunderous holocaust swirled roof-high.
Ross sprinted for the office area. Scrambling up a ladder to the first catwalk, he peered down into the rooms below.
Already Mawson's men were running for the door to the street. But of Mawson himself, and of Veta Hall, there was no sign.
Breathing hard, Ross moved on along the catwalk.
Now, abruptly, Mawson came into view, racing his grav-seat out away from a spot where two partitions intersected, and into the open area in the center of one of the larger rooms. His movements were jerky, and he sat hunched forward in the seat, an air of tension heavy upon him.
The next instant Veta appeared, darting after the adjudicator. An ugly bruise showed on her forehead. Panting, stumbling, she snatched at Mawson's tunic.
But he dodged and flipped up an elbow sharply, so that it struck the girl in the mouth. Then, as she sagged back momentarily, he swung the chair in, and slammed a palmed paragun flat to the side of her head.
Veta crumpled to the floor ... lay there in a limp, still heap.
Instantly, Mawson whirled the grav-seat away again, racing it up over the room's partitions in a swift, spiraling arc.
Ross held his position on the catwalk like a statue. Only his eyes moved—first flicking down to Veta's motionless form, then away from her and up to Mawson.
Still the grav-seat climbed. Mawson gave hardly a glance to the roaring sea of flame that now enveloped the whole central area of the warehouse. His face was lined and set, his eyes riveted on some spot in the building's upper reaches.
Ross stared after him. Then, turning, once again he looked down at the office area.
Veta Hall still lay unmoving where she'd fallen.
Ross started along the catwalk towards her.
Only then, as if his eyes somehow were drawn by some psychic magnet, he paused in mid-stride and yet another time looked around for Mawson.
Simultaneously, the other's grav-seat came to rest on the second, higher catwalk, close under the roof. Unfastening the seat's safety belt, Mawson thrust his twisted legs down onto the walk, dragged himself to his feet, hobbled clumsily to a nearby switch-box and pulled a lever.
A faint grinding of gears rose above the noise of the fire. Twin roof-plates slid back to reveal a skylight.
For the fraction of a second Ross hesitated. Then, pivoting, he ran for the nearest ladder that stretched upward from his catwalk to Mawson's.
Above him, the adjudicator slapped shut the switch-box and began a slow-shuffling return to the grav-seat.
Ross reached the ladder. Cat-agile, he swung up it, hand over hand, two rungs at a time.
Mawson reached the grav-seat as Ross topped the ladder and scrambled up onto the catwalk.
Now, pausing for a moment as he adjusted the seat's safety belt, the older man—young now—gazed out across the holocaust, a sardonic smile twisting his thin lips. Sweat streamed down his pale face and dripped from his chin. Puffing a little, he swabbed his forehead with his sleeve.
Behind him, Ross silently crept forward through the well-nigh unendurable heat in a half-crouch. His lips were parted, the skin taut and shiny across his cheek bones.
Mawson glanced up at the open skylight. His hand dropped to the seat's arm. His fingers moved over the controls.
The chair lifted just a fraction, till it hovered clear of the catwalk.
Ross' eyes distended. Nostrils flaring, he broke into a headlong run.
But the catwalk vibrated under the impact of his weight. As if by reflex, his quarry's shoulders stiffened. The fingers on the control-arm spun a dial. The seat whipped round like a pointer on a pivot.
For an instant, then, the eyes of the two men met.
Mawson expelled a sudden breath. His lips peeled back in a death's-head grin. His free hand whipped up the paragun.
Eight feet, possibly, separated the two of them now. Not even breaking stride, Ross dived for Mawson.
Nimble-fingered, the adjudicator flipped switches. The grav-seat rocked back out of reach like a swing, then forward again in a short arc that smashed the chair's base against Ross' shoulder with numbing force as he sprawled off-balance on the catwalk.
Rolling with the blow, Ross went half off the narrow footway. Before he could recover, Mawson spun the seat again. It swished down like a powered sledge.
Spasmodically, Ross threw himself clear off the walk, dangling in mid-air, suspended by the fingers of one hand only.
Above him, Pike Mawson's face contorted in a leer. The seat ground on the edge of the catwalk, searching for his fingers.
Jaws clenched, Ross swung sidewise violently, letting go of the footway with his one hand as he hooked on with the other.
It was like hanging from a spit above a literal inferno. Flames roared below him. The draft that swept from the building's entrance up to the open skylight carried heat like a chimney.
Again, Mawson tried to grind the grav-seat down on Ross' fingers.
Again, Ross swung clear.
Mawson cursed aloud, then leaned far forward over the front of the seat and leveled his paragun at Ross' head.
Free arm flailing, Ross let go his precarious grip on the catwalk and lunged upward towards Mawson, paragun and grav-seat. His clawing fingers locked around the weapon's barrel.
For frantic seconds they hung there thus, struggling for the paragun. Twice, Mawson triggered charges. Both times, they went wide.
But now Ross had a grip on seat as well as weapon. With a sudden jerk, he wrenched the gun from the other's hand. It spun away in a long, catapulting arc that ended in the flames below.
Like lightning, Mawson thumbed a button set in the grav-seat's control-arm.
The chair came down on the catwalk with a crash, then bounced high into the air, almost to the roof. Ross' nails gouged long tracks in the seat's plastox upholstery as his fingers slipped under the shock.
Mawson spun a dial. The grav-seat whipped round in a tight circle that all but hurled Ross clear across the warehouse by sheer centrifugal force.
White to the lips, Ross clutched at Mawson's safety belt.
The adjudicator spun the dial the other way. Simultaneously, he caught the hand on his belt by a forefinger and levered the member back so violently as to make the snap of its fracture audible even through the din of the fire.
Ross gave a low, hoarse cry. He smashed a fist down on the fingers with which Mawson gripped the grav-seat's controls.
It was Mawson's turn to jerk back; cry out. Gripping the control-arm with cable-taut fingers, corded muscles standing out along his forearms, Ross twisted.
Metal screeched a protest. The seat rocked violently.
Ross wrenched again.
A contact-point snapped. Connections tore loose. Sideslipping, out of control, the seat careened down to a precarious landing athwart the catwalk.
Convulsively, Mawson beat at Ross' face—raking the cheeks, stabbing for the eyes.
Ducking his head, Ross levered the control-arm still farther out of place.
A sound close to that of a sob echoed in Mawson's throat. He pounded Ross' back. "Stop it, you fool! Stop it, before you kill us both!"
Panting with strain, Ross paused for an instant.
Mawson, babbling: "Don't you see? There's no way left for us to get out of here except that skylight—and it's too high to do us any good without the grav-seat."
A small, spasmodic ripple of movement, like the passing of a chill, crossed Ross' shoulders. He still didn't speak.
"Turn me in to FedGov Security if you want to, rack you!" raged Mawson. "Do you think I care about that? Just get us out of this hell-hole alive; that's all I ask!"
Ross raised his head a fraction; stared down at the sea of flame below.
Mawson again—a cunning, crafty Mawson this time: "Think of the girl, Ross! Think of her, even if you don't give a filan for your own neck! She'll roast, down there in that office! But you still may be able to save her, if we get around to the street entrance fast enough."
Ross breathed in sharply. He started to straighten.
Twisting in his seat, Mawson peered back and down over his own shoulder. Then, suddenly, he leveled a shaking finger. "Ross! Look—!"
Ross craned forward, staring.
Like lightning, Mawson whipped back his elbow ... smashed it to the bridge of Ross' nose with the same savage force that had stunned Veta Hall.
Ross lurched backwards.
Mawson spun the chair's control-dial. Wobbling, unsteady, the grav-seat started upward.
Only then Ross, reeling, caught the seat's base. His upflung hand slapped the control-plate. His fingers hooked around its edges. Again, muscles stood out along his forearm as he brought sudden pressure.
The plate tore loose. The grav-seat dropped back onto the catwalk with a crash.
Tight-lipped, with no sign that he so much as heard Pike Mawson's shriek of anguish, Ross hurled the control unit down into the roaring fire below....
It was quiet in this place ... so very, very quiet.
Only then, ever so faintly, a door-hinge creaked. Shoes whispered across synthoflooring.
For a long moment, Ross still lay unmoving.
The whispering shoes drew closer—enough shoes for several pairs of feet.
Slowly, Ross opened his eyes.
A tall, slim man stood beside the bed—a man whose dark blue uniform bore silver comets on its shoulder-straps.
Ross straightened just a trifle. Voice faint, he whispered, "Commandant Padora...."
The tall man inclined his head in a small, precise nod. "My congratulations, Mr. Ross."
A muscle in Ross' cheek twitched. "Congratulations—?" And then, more definitely, more firmly: "Congratulations for what?"
"For successfully completing your mission."
Ross said, "I didn't complete it. The formula—"
"The formula has been recovered," the Security commandant interrupted smoothly. "Adjudicator Mawson told us precisely where to find it. Also, he confessed to murdering Doctor Tornelescu."
Ross stared. "He confessed?"
Commandant Padora glanced to one of the blue-uniformed men who stood behind him. "He did, didn't he, Mr. Galacorri?"
"He seemed quite eager to," the other answered dryly. "He had some strange notion our rescue party might leave him on that catwalk if he didn't."
The shadow of a smile played round the corners of the commandant's mouth. "In any event, Mr. Ross, Doctor Tornelescu's life catalyst now is in our hands, available for properly-controlled research, development and use. And I'm told that Mr. Mawson undoubtedly will spend the added years of life the injection gave him in a cell."
"I see."
"There's another matter also, Mr. Ross: the matter of your own disobedience of orders." Commandant Padora's grey eyes seemed to study the blank wall before him. "To set your mind at rest, I plead guilty to using you uncomfortably like a cat's-paw. By so restricting you as to precipitate insubordination, I temporarily convinced Cheng and Mawson that you were a free agent. As a result, they acted rashly, without covering their tracks properly. That's how we came to close in when we did; to have men and lines at hand to drop down through that skylight and take you off the catwalk after you'd collapsed from shock and heat."
"I see," Ross said again.
"In consequence of all this," the other went on with clipped precision, "the Federated Governments feel you've earned a certain recompense in terms of honor." He held out a hand to one of the men behind him. "Mr. Livingston...."
"Here, sir." The man laid a flat leather case on the commandant's palm.
"Stewart Ross"—Commandant Padora stood very erect now—"it is my privilege as commandant of the Federated Governments' integrated security agencies to present you at this time with our highest honor, the Starburst Medal First Class for service to humanity above and beyond the call of duty."
He leaned forward as he finished; took the silver decoration from its case and pinned it to the breast of Ross' sleeper jacket.
"Thank you, sir," Ross said. "I do appreciate it."
The other eyed him keenly. "Your face doesn't match your words, Mr. Ross," he observed. "Perhaps it's because you feel you've lost something more important to you than all the FedGov's medals."
And then, pivoting: "Miss Hall!"
For the first time, Ross' head lifted from its pillow. The hand that clutched his coverlet suddenly was shaking.
In the same moment, the blue-uniformed group behind Commandant Padora parted.
And there was Veta Hall.
Pressing between the men, she darted to Ross; fell on her knees beside his bed. And though her dark eyes streamed tears and her forehead still showed its ugly bruised streak, never had her face been lovelier or more radiant.
"Stewart—!" she choked. "Oh, Stewart, my darling...."
Ross' lips cut off her words.
"As I said," Commandant Padora announced to no one in particular, "Mr. Ross' efforts gave us both the time and opportunity to take care of all aspects of the situation at Mawson's warehouse."
It was doubtful if Ross and Veta even heard him....