Dane veered into the first cross-passage; dropped down a pneumolift to the next level.
More green telonium walls. More bells and guards and paralyzers.
Lurching now, staggering, Dane stumbled onward. It was as if his body were acting independently, without his mind's volition, for intelligence told him flatly that there would be, could be, no escape. Not in a closed unit like a spaceship.
Yet here he was, still fleeing.
Why? Why?
Laughing, he downed another guard with the yat-stick; and even in his own ears his mirth rang a drunken note.
Another pneumolift. Another. And after that, a long, dim-lighted passage.
Dead end.
So this was where they'd trap him.
Only then, as he slumped to the floor, he stubbed his toe on a heavy screw-lock; saw at last the scarlet-lidded hatch on which he squatted.