"You must be insane!" choked the Master of the Cosmos. "The roof guards—the palace guards and my own personal men will blast you down before you can set a foot outside this room!"
"Just—keep—laughing!" Glayne said, emphasizing every word. One or two of the guests looked at them curiously as they approached the massive doors, then turned away indifferently. The trembling had ceased. That meant that Harbin had cleared away the immediate defenses—but Glayne knew it would be a race with the reinforcements.
The doors were opened before them by attendants—slowly and with agonizing dignity. Two hawk-eyed Delban guards glanced at them sharply as they entered the corridor that led to the Bro's private apartment and the crucial fifth level roof elevator. Ever so slowly they moved down the corridor. It was a snail's pace to Glayne. Gort Bro-Doral laughed—or gasped in his sickly, explosive manner. He gestured. He spoke to Glayne, waving his arms in a deprecating manner. And all the while the Guardian looked innocently into the Delban's tormented features, his hand clinging wetly to the Cardy in the folds of his jumper.
They met no more guards in the corridor; evidently the rest of them had hastened to the roof. But the first two were still eyeing them. Glayne could feel their stares burning into his back. Twenty feet separated them from the waiting elevator ... fifteen ... ten. Niala had drawn abreast with General Ganser; the sick, the pale, the fuzzy-minded Intelligence Chief whose cunning was known throughout the Galaxy.
There was a sudden commotion behind them. Glayne cast a glance over his shoulder and saw the corridor rapidly filling with uniformed and heavily-armed Delbans. They commanded him to stop; he smiled back. They brandished their weapons; he waved back gaily, herding the prisoners into the open elevator. They rushed after him; he drew his Cardy gun, crouched, and fired with murderous effect. Then he lunged into the elevator and jabbed the roof stud.
Swiftly it rose. Glayne turned to the two Delbans. The Ruler of Ten Thousand Suns was in a blue funk but General Ganser had pulled himself together a bit. His heavily-veined, crimson eyes blazed furiously at the kidnapers.
"Be careful with the General," Glayne warned. "He is dangerous when sober."
She managed a weak smile and thereby jumped another ten points in Glayne's esteem. The elevator sighed to a stop and the heavy door slid open, letting the dry wind pluck at them. Glayne turned his blaster on the controls, fusing them into tangled slag. Then he crept to the open door, crouched, and surveyed the palace roof in the pale, rosy illumination shed by one of Sterle's just-risen moons.
On his left, not a hundred yards away, lay the flier from the Algol. Three gunners from the crew were operating a portable Kellander, firing along the edge of the anti-energy shield which had been generated from the flier to prevent other Delban roof emplacements from destroying the little assault force. The rest of the attacking group manned Delban energy projectors that were still in operating condition, sending a heavy fire into possible concentration points for an enemy counter-attack. Bodies—mostly Delban—sprawled everywhere.
"We'll have to run for it," Glayne said. "They've erected an anti-shield between us and the flier. Once we gain that, we're safe."