In the next room, meanwhile, Dorlup was fuming. His whole orientation toward what had happened had been drastically altered in the last few moments. It was not a mistake, hardly a mistake at all.
A plot?
A plot, decidedly. Dorlup was being used as—what was the 20th century term he had picked up?—as a fall guy. He'd have none of it. Not Dorlup. At first he hardly knew how to straighten it out, but if Ruscar wouldn't help—he had counted on Ruscar and now it seemed Ruscar was behind everything—then Dorlup had only one place to turn. He smiled grimly. After what had happened at the Eradrome, he never thought he'd go to Tedor Barwan for anything.
The guard kept one eye on Dorlup, and at the same time tried to listen, through a partially opened door to the conservation in the next room. Dorlup picked up a chair when he was convinced all the guard's attentions were centered on the other room. He swung the chair like a four-stemmed club, shattering it over the guard's head. Feet pounded in the next room, but Dorlup was on his way out.
Shots barked in the darkness, and once a parabeam zipped past Dorlup. But he kept on running and he found a car at the head of the driveway. Not only were the keys in the ignition, the engine was idling. Dorlup sprung inside for all his massive bulk and had gunned the automobile out toward the main highway before another car started in pursuit.
Heading for the road to Reno and his time-conveyor, Dorlup wondered how he could approach Tedor Barwan in Moscow—if, indeed Tedor was on his way there. Well, Dorlup knew a man in the Spasso House, the American Embassy fronting on Red Square. He was an expatriate time-traveler who had decided to remain in the 20th century as one of its citizens—something growing more common every day. Perhaps he could help Dorlup....
If he ever got to his time-conveyor, let alone Moscow.
Headlights blazed in his rear-view mirror. He pressed his right foot down on the accelerator, as far as it would go. The lights did not fade, nor did they grow brighter.
"It can't really be him," Georgi Malenkov told the Comrade Doctor in obvious distaste.