I could hear the fat man's voice through the French windows as he, North, and Giles pounded toward the little antigravity-powered spaceship that had landed on the front lawn.
"It shouldn't have landed here!" Van Ostrand was bellowing. "We'll be detected here! They'll follow it in no time! They—" His voice was drowned out by a bellow of thunder as the police ships dropped from the sky.
"That ship is government property! Stay away, or we shoot!"
The three men knew that they'd be safe from almost anything inside that ship, so they kept going. They'd rather take the risk than lose their chance at having immortality or a mind control machine. I walked quietly over to a window and looked out.
Giles, the triggerman, was firing, accurately but ineffectively, at the police craft. The blue-hot beam of his Lundhurst was simply spattering off their shields.
A police beam winked down, and Giles Jackson was gone.
I hadn't known the fat man could move so fast. He was already at the airlock, tugging open the emergency unlocker. Bob North was right behind him.
Again the police gunner's beam found its mark.
But this beam touched the ship, too.
I turned away from the window and ran to Nikki. Her shock at seeing me didn't last long.