The wall gaped for him. He stepped through. The green technicians moved serenely under the huge machine, servicing it as if he did not exist. In a way, he thought, I don't. He sped across the floor. His boots resounded hollowly on the stone. He came up to the machine and opened fire.
Thunder roared in the chamber. The technicians twittered and ran around him. One of them posted himself at a board whose pattern of signaling lights was too intricate for men to grasp, and called out orders. The others began to fetch replacement parts. And the siren yammered. It was like no alarm on Earth; its voice seemed almost alive.
Four guards burst in from the outer hall. Holbrook sprang behind a technician, who kept stolidly by his rank of levers. The guards halted, stared around, and began to cast about like sniffing dogs. Holbrook shot past the green Zolotoyan, dropped one, dropped two. A human would have sacrificed the enemy's living shield to get at the enemy; but no black had ever fired on a green. Another guard approached and was killed. But where had the fourth gotten to?
Holbrook heard the noise and whirled about. The gaunt shape had been almost upon him, from the rear. Ekaterina had attacked. They rolled about the floor, she snarling, he with a remote god-like calm even as he wrestled. He got her by the throat. Holbrook ran up behind and clubbed his blaster. After more blows than a man could have survived, the guard slumped.
The woman crawled from beneath, gasping. Holbrook's strength was fled, his lungs one enormous agony. He sank to the floor beside her. "Are you all right?" he forced. "Are you hurt, my dearest?"
"Hold."
They crouched side by side and turned faces which bled from the nose back toward the machine. Ilya Grushenko stood there. A blaster was poised in his hands. "Drop your gun or I shoot," he said. "You and her both."
Holbrook's fingers went slack. He heard the remote clatter of his weapon as it struck stone.
"Thank you, Eben Petrovitch," said Grushenko. "Now they have it proven to them which of our factions is their friend."
"You don't understand!" choked Holbrook. "Listen to me!"