He was still coming at me, so I burned him again, watched him crumble and sag. That was an error. The other Spartan, who was still somewhere back in the shadows of the collonade, blasted my arm, burning it half through. I watched my fingers curl and my E-special fall out and away slowly as in a dream.
There wasn't pain, physical pain. There was sheer mental anguish as I visualized myself closing my career of duty for the World-State, a failure. I knew what they wanted with my corpse. Dead, my cerebrum would be removed, activated, and its mental storage released through electronic recorders the Spartan scientists had developed. They preferred a brain taken from death as there was no slightest difficulty from conscious or even subconscious resistance.
But the Spartan couldn't burn me without a parting voice. His egomania demanded that I see and hear the power that had defeated me. He came out of the shadows, a black muscled melodramatic outline.
"Goodby," he slurred in a thick accent. "For a reputed great man, you employ pathetic guards. Your force is growing weak and negligent, Allinger. Soon our long wait and our long fight will reach its victorious end, even as you reach your shameful end now."
The Spartan tensed his blaster and I leaped straight into it, desperately, because I had nothing to lose.
I never got to him, and his blaster never got to me. I hit something painfully and bounced off. My arm was a lump of burning agony as I thudded to the roof, stunned by an impact with an invisible barrier.
The Spartan was discharging his blaster at me, but the power rebounding flung him to his knees. The blaster was knocked over the side of the roof-landing, and the Spartan staggered to his feet again, and weaved back.
Then, abruptly, his eyes bulged with awe that changed to terror. He backed away, staring, not at me, but at something beside me. Then the Spartan disappeared suddenly. I heard a faint whirring that rose up and faded rapidly. For an instant I followed the sound of the jet-car as it receded toward the red moon outlining the archaic structure of the Golden Gate Bridge, then I turned to see what had saved my life. It had been prolonged at least.
I hadn't been at all surprised to see the little man appear on the private jet-car landing of my San Francisco apartment. There had been no sound, only coruscating shifting hues of light that materialized him, not like the magic of old, but with all the magnificent and unlimited magic of science.
He stood there juggling the huge silver globe like a bubble toy, but one that certainly could never burst. His long, delicate arms and legs and torso couldn't have lifted twenty pounds without straining. The silver sphere must be elevated by unknown forces of its own.