Instantly we were on him; clawing, punching—making a desperate bid for the ato-matic. Pordo tried to scream and Augie planted a solid kick in his belly. The Jovian suddenly decided he didn't want to scream; maybe because there wasn't any air left in him to yell with.
I whipped a tentacle about the fat throat and began tightening my muscles, ruthlessly. Pordo's eyes bugged hideously and the wind whistled through his teeth in a vain effort to enter his lungs.
Sure, we were two on one, but fair play didn't enter the picture. We were fighting to save three worlds, and Xan and his henchmen had used the same tactics in their blood-drenched rise to power. This was a case of 'Durn aboud is fair play,' as Pordo would say.
Right now, he wasn't saying anything. The fat body had gone limp in my grasp and Pordo's evil soul was probably this minute bowing at the gates of hell and saying, "Gendlemen!"
"They'll be returning any minute!" Augie panted anxiously. "We've got to work fast!"
I handed him a small chunk of stuff I'd gouged from the body of a dead Plutonian and retired to my place at the balcony rail.
Augie took the stuff gingerly and placed it on the flat, upturned butt of Pordo's ato-matic. He crossed the slanting balcony to a point where the ceiling almost met the floor and waited there breathlessly.
A network of pipes ran across that ceiling. Pipes that contained water. This part of the palace was much the same as it had been many years ago, when the first Jovian dictator had met with his underlings here in the Assembly Hall and formed the policies of government that had laid the groundwork for eventual System domination. The Jovians entertained a sentimental attachment to this outmoded room and wouldn't think of modernizing it, except for inconsequential details such as lighting. Even the ancient, automatic sprinkler system remained. Originally used to combat fire, it was now nothing but an ornament; a relic of bygone days. The Jovians didn't need it now; scattered about the room were dozens of the recently invented Kelecyrine-capsules, one of which could extinguish the most persistent of flames. But I was staking everything on the hope the sprinkler was still connected to a water pump.
The diplomats were reentering the room! They moved forward confidently—unrealizing of the fact the Plutonians were dead. Xan led the procession, his gigantic belly bouncing up and down in rhythm to his pompous steps.