The wall dilated.
CHAPTER VI
Three guards stood shoulder to shoulder, their guns pointed inward, their lovely unhuman faces blank. A red-clad being, shorter than they, set down a bowl of stew and a container of water. The food was unidentifiable, but its odor was savory. Holbrook felt sure it had been manufactured for the Terrestrials.
"For the zoo!" he said aloud. And then, wildly: "No, for the filing cabinet. File and forget. Lock us up and throw away the key because there is nothing else they can do with us."
Ekaterina caught his arm. "Back," she warned.
Grushenko stood making gestures and talking, under the golden eyes of the guards. They loomed over him like idols from some unimaginable futurism. And suddenly the hatred which seethed in Holbrook left him; he knew nothing but pity. He mourned for Zolotoy the damned, which had once been so full of hope.
But he must live. His eyes turned to Ekaterina. He heard the frosty breath rattle in her nostrils. Already the coryza viruses in her bloodstream were multiplying; chill and oxygen starvation had weakened her. Fever would come within hours, death within weeks. And Grushenko would spend weeks trying to communicate. Or if he could be talked around to Holbrook's beliefs, it might be too late: that electronic idiot-savant might decide at any moment that the prisoners were safest if killed—
"I'm sorry," said Holbrook. He punched Ekaterina in the stomach.
She lurched and sat down. Holbrook side-stepped the red Zolotoyan, moved in under the guards, and seized a blast-gun with both hands. He brought up his foot in the same motion, against a bony black-clad knee, and heaved.