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If my assumptions were correct, and I saw no reason why they shouldn't be, the
Toltekians could maintain such a sound attack for only a limited time. Patrice
and Derron should have escaped and reported. They hadn't.
I knew of only two ways to imprison a good diver
either scramble his thoughts or tie him to a chunk of something too big to
carry into a dive. The second method was likely, particularly if Patrice and
Derron had been rendered unconscious with the initial sonic blast.
I reached down and checked my own equipment-belt for the laser cutter. It was
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there.
Knowing the kind of Guard employed on the Strike Force, I'd have bet that
Derron had homed in on Patrice's signal tried a frontal assault
of some sort. The Toltekians had apparently been ready for Derron and potted
him as well.'
Sitting there in the early afternoon light of Faffnir, I decided that waiting
wouldn't solve my problems. I didn't know of any equipment back on Query that
would provide a defense against sonics. So it seemed like speed was the best
answer
speed and a willingness to zap a few
Toltekians along the way.
I checked the Locator packs and activated them, diving undertime toward
Toltek. The signals led me under one of the larger structures on the northern
continent. Both signals were from the same point, from what seemed to be a
solid rock or stone chamber well underneath the city above.
The objective "now" for Patrice and Derron was close to local midnight. I
could have waited until "day," but that far underground I
doubted it would make a difference.
With both the darkness and the undertime barrier, I couldn't see more than
shadows, but the picture I received was of two figures chained to opposite
sides of a long wall with Toltekian sentries posted or planted at each end. A
long pointed weapon was aimed at one of the captives
Derron probably.
Hit and run was my idea, to slide up from the undertime behind one sentry and
stun her, him, or it, then to do the same to the other,
disable the weapon gadget with a thunderbolt, cut the two Guards free, leave a
set of demolition blocs, and depart. The charges would make a thorough mess of
the chamber and cover our tracks as well.
I slid from the undertime behind the Toltekian sentry closest to the gadget
gun and thumbed the stunner. It hummed. Nothing happened. The sentry stood. At
that instant, both sentries "screamed" and the whole dungeon began shaking. I
dropped the stunner and threw a thunderbolt at the far sentry.
All that energy bounced off him, skittered around the tentacles
purple tentacles. But the sentry shrank back, wincing. In the intervening
instants, the sentry I'd failed to stun had turned toward me, "screaming," and
grabbed at me with his tentacles.
For a fraction of an instant, the vibrations distracted me, but I
mentally pushed them away and slid around the grabby Toltekian. I threw
another thunderbolt, this time at the weapon. The pointed nozzle wilted, and
the sentries froze at the flash. A deep gong chimed in the background, and
kept chiming.
So far, I'd alerted the entire city and accomplished nothing. I was beginning
to see red. Damned if a bunch of tree-snails were going to stand in front of
Loki!
Light! That was the answer. They didn't like light. I began firing off
thunderbolts in every direction, pulling the laser cutter off my belt as I
dashed/slid toward Patrice. She was out cold, slumped against the chains which
linked her to the wall. Her arms were tight against the stone, and the links
of the chains were shaped stone which seemed to be the same material as the
walls. That explained plenty. I cut through two sets of links and let her
slump to the floor. Then I fired off another round of thunderbolts in the
general direction of the two sentries and slid to the other side of the
chamber.
Like Patrice, Derron was unconscious. It was harder to cut the chains from his
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arms because he was bigger than me, bigger even than
Baldur, and had his whole weight resting against them.
I used the cutter to blaze through one while I threw a bunch of lightnings
behind me. I had the feeling that more Toltekians were closing, ready to enter
the chamber, but I finished the second set of links and let Derron collapse on
the rock floor. I could hold him, but not carry him.
I glanced up in time to see a procession of Toltekians coming through the oval
door with a high-speed glide.
I froze them in place with all the power I could throw and as the chamber
flared with that light, I saw that they were unlimbering some ugly hardware.
I flash slid to the other side of the dungeon and tossed Patrice over my
shoulder, glad she was small, and slid back across to Derron.
Using my free arm, I blasted the Toltekians again, concentrating on light. The
thunderbolts may not have caused them physical pain, but all the power I was
tossing blinded them and made a mess of their equipment.
Before I picked up Derron, I had enough presence of mind to yank out a handful
of demolition cubes, one at a time, ripping the set tab of the corner of each
one as I scattered them across the chamber. With the last cube gone, I grabbed
Derron around the waist and forced my way undertime.
Forced, because it's difficult to carry a cooperating and consenting
adult undertime, let alone two unconscious ones. The unconscious mind resists
any change; it has a tendency to lock itself into the here and now, wherever
it is. But I managed, clearing the undertime of Toltek as fast as I could. I
struggled fiercely to get as far as Faffnir, and
Faffnir was only a fraction of the time and distance home. I broke-out on the
knoll I'd found earlier, not that I'd been looking for it, but somehow we
ended up there. Local time was late afternoon, with a breeze sweeping in from
the sea, carrying an ancient tang of metal.
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| Cytat |
Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
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