But West had dropped to a crouch almost as he spoke and now his own gun was in his fist, tilting up, solid in his hand. His thumb pressed the activator and then slid off.
Something dragged itself with heavy thumps across the floor and in the stillness between the bumps, West heard the rasp of heavy breaths.
"Damn you, West," said Cartwright. "Damn you...."
"It's an old trick, Cartwright," said West, "that business of talking to a man just before you kill him. Throwing him off guard, practically ambushing him."
Came a sound of cloth dragging over cloth, the whistling of painful breath, the thump of knees and elbows on the floor.
Then there was silence.
And a moment later something in some far corner squeaked and ran on pattering, rat-sounding feet. Then the silence again.
The rat-feet were still, but there was another sound, a faint shout as if someone far away were shouting ... from somewhere outside the building, from somewhere outside ... from outside.
West crouched close against the floor, huddling there, the muzzle of the gun resting on the carpet.
Outside ... outside ... outside....