"Good enough." I punched the button and we zoomed upward. "There'll be a guard on duty, of course. You might think about how you're going to get us past him."
Gaylord looked a little green.
The lift slowed. Jerking my sash from Gaylord's throat, I snapped it back in place about my waist and, as we halted, shoved my unwilling accomplice out of the cage ahead of me.
There were two guards in the anteroom instead of one. The first, beetle-browed and heavy-jawed, slumped dozing in a chair. His companion, slimmer and trimmer, sat straighter than was necessary but without a coat, playing a miniature sokkol wheel against himself.
"Visitor for Controller Kruze," Gaylord croaked as the non-sleeping guard looked up. He made as if to stride past the pair to the door beyond.
But as he did so, his head went forward just a fraction, and his left shoulder dropped.
The next item on the agenda would be a simultaneous yell of warning and spin to one side, out of my reach. He might as well have put it on a placard.
I leaped first, by a split second. When the yell came, and the spin, I was already in position to catch Gaylord's arm as he whirled by.
It changed his course a bit. He crashed bodily into the dozing, bull-necked guard, and they went down together.
But the other guard was rising. Ducking, I snatched up his fallen comrade's chair and hurled it at him.