He went at a staggering run down the pipe, guiding himself by the beam of the radi-light torch he fumbled from his belt. Echoes drummed along the metal tube from his running feet, and the dull pounding in his head raced with the sound. He whirled around a bend in the pipe, stopped, braced himself momentarily on the curved wall. Then, the ringing in his head slowing, and his mind clearing, he ran again at a faster pace.
The yells of his pursuers rocketed through the tube, slowly gaining. But a thin smile twisted the Falcon's mouth; he had a bolt-hole or two that were unknown to any but him, holes that had saved his life before.
He slipped now and then in the greasy seepage at the pipe's bottom, came again to his feet, feeling strength draining from him, realizing that the shot had almost put a partial stasis on his nervous system.
He ran slower now, utterly unable to keep up the headlong pace. His breath was hot and dry in his throat, and a heart-pain in his side cramped his belly. He staggered again and again, until at last he could move only at a fast walk.
The agents gained, crying their pack call like Martian ganths running a lowland creature to death in a canal bottom. Their boots slammed driving echoes from the pipe, growing louder with each passing second.
The Falcon knew that he could run no further; he leaned against the wall, checked the charge in his gun. A mirthless laugh grated in his throat, and he felt futility beating at his heart for the first time in years.
"Make it a good world, Curt!" Val had said.
Curt Varga fought then, fought the dizziness in his mind, struggled with the defeat he felt in his heart. He had a task to do; not for himself, not for his martyred brothers and father—but for a dozen worlds to whom he and his brood had become a symbol of hope in a blackened century.
He spun about, seeking a manhole opening, saw none. He did not know where he was, for there were no identifying marks in the tube. He thought swiftly, but his thoughts seemed to move with a treacly slowness. Then he lifted his gun, flicked it to full force, blasted a hole through the side of the conduit.