He reached out a bony hand for a maze of wires, but Case stopped him.
"Wait. We don't want to do just a temporary job. And we don't want to die here either. There's a debt I've got to settle on Earth. What are our chances of getting a ship?"
"Not much," Burnine told him. "The liner we came in is in a hangar beyond the last tower."
"Close enough," Case snapped. "You four watch the doors. They've got a tank of atomic fuel here, and if I know my stuff I ought to be able to rig up something that will do a permanent job on this installation."
Only two of them came up out of the lower level—Burnine and Case Damon. Behind them, they left a pile of corpses. Burnine was kept going by sheer strength of will, lugging a shoulder gun that weighed half as much as he.
The corridor on the main level was packed with armed men, but they cleared it by keeping a blast of fire always before them. Men melted away into side rooms, slid down intersecting halls. But at the entrance, the big door was closed.
"Looks like we're stuck," Burnine grunted. "We can't burn our way through that. And if we move, we'll have a hundred men popping out again behind our backs."
"We'll try one of these rooms back here," Case said. "Always the chance of it having a window."
The first room they tried was a blank. So were the next couple. While Case kept the corridor cleared, Burnine stuck his head inside and investigated.