Chapter SEVEN

Arms folded across his chest, Brad half-listened to Hodak reeling off status from screens that lined the Raven's flaked, time-battered bridge.

The indicators in Brad's line-of-sight, at least those that still functioned, displayed erratic and uncertain status of systems and accessories in the main power plant, fluids pressure pumps, oxygen generators and other vital gear. More than slightly precarious, according to the dials and blinking lights, but the records would show that the ancient utility had been accepted at the spunnel gateway in the void between the Asteroid Belt and Jupiter, despite its technical difficulties.

Sneaking into the tail end of a crowded convoy of Slingshot-bound transports gave them the 'jump' they needed. The Neptune spunnel exit would do fine and provide a seemingly reasonable story under interrogation, if it came to that.

Stripped to her vitals, all but the simplest decisions diverted from her computer, the Raven reminded Brad of his old freighter when he first took her over. The Raven's maintenance records showed that she had slipped to less than marginal. Hodak's expertise with duct tape and hand tools would get credit for the successful escape.

Planet Pluto, in her ashen melancholy, lay dead ahead. Sprawled across the frozen methane plain a couple of points to starboard Coldfield's lights shimmered through its frost-crusted, barely translucent dome. Stretching away from the twenty-kilometer-wide city, the mottled terrain spread in all directions, slashed by ravines and man-made, soil-fused excavations, roads and bridges. Mooring towers, launch and landing pads spotted the barren landscape across which crawled processions of utility tugs.

Near-space cargo and passenger shuttles and taxis landed at and departed from pads adjacent pressurized air docks into the city. Deep-space transports and utilities rode high, immobilized by fore-and-aft mag-beams at the pinnacles of two-hundred-meter mooring towers.

The Raven drifted closer. Brad noted the hard orange glow of energy packs encapsulated in vehicles moving about on the dome and surrounding land surfaces. Adjusted magnification defined the vehicles as personnel carriers, flatbed trailers, dome fissure-fusers, and methane frost scrapers. Coldfield was a busy place.

Charon drifted into view from over the horizon as the Raven nosed forward. Only Lamplight's dome and high-intensity flashers that pinpointed its landing pads, gateways and walkways broke the moonlet's solid gray-green landscape. Further out, the logistics depot slid slowly across the sky like a glowing green-and-orange sausage.

Zolan keyed a signal to Pluto Traffic Control as the Raven crossed the line into the planet's jurisdiction. He added the ship's name and call sign. Several minutes passed without response. Zolan leaned back from the console and winked at Brad. News of their presence had preceded them and the locals were likely wondering why had the ship appeared in their skies.

The receiver squawked, "Raven. Stand by for escort."

A yellow-and-green-striped space tug drifted alongside and flashed its 'Follow Me' signal. Brad nodded at Zolan who acknowledged the tug's instruction. Adari trimmed the Raven's controls and clamped a mag beam on the tug. She and the tug driver exchanged salutations and prattled navigational details as the escort moved off with the Raven following like an elephant leashed to a flea. Adari logged their destination: Slot 09 along Coldfield marker 13K.

Their passage was slow. Despite the heavy traffic of tugs, taxis, and other small craft the lanes were orderly and the flow steady. Traffic thinned as the ship drifted across surface-parked lots for small vessels and disappeared entirely as the Raven closed on its mooring towers.

The escort rattled off the coordinates and the Raven fixed her position. Adari released the mag-beam. The tug slipped around to starboard and mag-nosed the clumsy vessel into its slot. A command from the tug and mooring beams glowed at the fore-and-aft towers to immobilize the Raven. Adari and the tug driver exchanged rough civilities and the escort was up and away.

"Lock down, fore and aft," Brad intoned. "Safety check mooring beams and vital connections. Secure all internal hatches and passages. Set environment controls at minimal levels for an indefinite stay. Report."

He keyed the order into the log, added the time of entry, and keyed the record closed using his suspended Space Master's code.

Myra assembled records required by port officials. Hodak and Adari consulted checklists as they trooped from one compartment to the next; Hodak opened and closed switches, turned wheels and secured and sealed valves as Adari observed and verified. She surveyed each station, mumbled, "confirmed," and initialed the appropriate items on her copy of the checklist.

Zolan closed down the deep space communications system and inspected their suit's intercoms. Kumiko drew six handguns from a rack, checked firing controls and charges, and fitted the weapons to suits.

Zolan called for a taxi.

##

"Lock-sealing the effective range on personal weapons is the first order of business for all newcomers."

The officious clerk in the Port Registration Office was skinny, short, stooped and sallow; and he squinted as if he had just emerged from darkness into glare. The deep wrinkles around his mouth twitched from cast-iron grin to scowl and back as he pointed from Brad's holster to the waist-high counter that separated them.

Brad drew his sidearm, checked the safety and set it on the counter. His companions followed suit. The clerk hefted each weapon in turn, double-checked the safety, and positioned it under a penetray scanner to check for illegal modifications and, using a hand-held standard, reset the range to Coldfield's limits.

"Five meters, max," he said as he worked, "and minimum-effect level at all times. Set it any way you want when you leave the dome, but reset it as soon as you come back in. We do the first one for the record; after that it's up to you. Penalty for violation depends on circumstances; minimum is a couple of sleeps in the brig."

He peered at them across the counter.

"We know who you are and where you came from," he said. "Keep out of trouble and you'll get by OK."

As he finished each weapon inspection he returned it to the countertop, pointing the muzzle into a shielded enclosure and stepped back behind a barrier. The owner picked up the sidearm, rechecked the safety and the setting, and slipped it back into its sheath.

"Hope you were listening when I said we know who you are," said the clerk, scowling, looking from one to the other. "If you didn't hear me the first time, I'll repeat it: keep out of trouble and you'll get by OK. Y'hear?"

Brad scowled back, silent. Hodak grinned; Myra and
Kumiko nodded and vigorously pointed at themselves.

"I hate trouble," Myra said with solemn sincerity.

"Me too," Kumiko chimed in. "I hate trouble.
I really do."

Adari laughed, leaned over the counter, and rumpled the little man's scant hair. He jerked away.

"Wouldn't think of it, Buster," she boomed.

She drew her hand back, looked at the palm, and rubbed it on her suit as she turned away. Zolan ignored the scene.

Hodak leaned over the counter and waved the clerk closer.

"So you know where we're from, do you?" His voice was a friendly growl and he got a curt nod in reply.

"Then you know we came here for sanctuary,"
Hodak said. "How do we get it?"

"Your entry permit is provisional; permanent party status depends on how you adjust to our rules."

"This is the only place left to us," Hodak added a whine to his voice. "We're not about to start trouble and wear out our welcome." Switching to a hoarse whisper, he added, "Look, man, we need a place to put our stuff, and then we want to look around. Maybe we can find action in our kind of work that'll build up our credits. We've talked it over." He thumbed to include his companions. "We're available, and we can't afford to be choosy. The Inner Region doesn't mean a thing to us. Know what I mean?"

"Sure."

The clerk repeated his grin-scowl, snickered, and slapped Hodak on the shoulder.

"What's the word on living accommodations under the dome?" Adari cut in.

"Gotta register for permanent quarters, and you'll need a permit to build a place of your own. They're almost impossible to get. Try for 'temporary' until you know your way around. Good place to start is the Condor over on Con-man Slash."

"How do we get there?" Kumiko asked.

"Taxi to dome air lock 22," he replied. "Inside, take the second transit strip. The off-ramps are Smuggler's Alley, Faithhealer's Spread, Plunder Cove, Bunco Crawl, and then Con-Man Slash. It's in the center of town; you can't miss it." He waved them toward the air lock. "On your way, folks; you're cleared."

He watched them suit up and enter the air lock. When he heard the whisper of the outer door, he lifted a comm device, pressed buttons and spoke hurriedly.

Chapter EIGHT

Clearing the outer door, Zolan leaned against the buffer, tightened his bootstrap with one gloved hand, the other pressed against the wall to steady himself. Seconds later, he pulled away, shook his leg to settle the boot for comfort, and caught up with Brad.

Grasping Brad's elbow activated the secure to-suit circuit. Myra, Hodak, Adari and Kumiko crowded in close and energized a camouflaging mix of artificial jive and loud laughs on the nature of the terrain, the location of the Transit Strip, the tank town's appearance in the distance, whatever served as a barrier to electronic penetration.

"The clerk passed the word about us," Zolan said. "Gave full descriptions and said to notify someone called 'Scarf'. By the way, he did a lot more than check our weapons while we stood at the counter. We were scanned down to our bones. He's sending the file to his control, including the main portal's lock combination on the Raven. He'll have a lifter ready for someone who's to arrive soon. Looks like they're going to search the ship."

"Fine," Brad nodded. "Nothing there to cause
us a problem. Pass the word as we move along.
No changes in plans until some contacts develop.
Then we'll regroup and go on from there."

Boarding a robo-taxi that had just discharged suited figures at a nearby mooring tower, the Sentinels lined up along the taxi's portal. Zolan consulted a placard on the instrument panel and punched in the coordinates for Air Lock 22. As the flitter rose and headed toward the dome Brad thought back as he weighed their chances.

The processes of intense physical training and weapons drills, the concentrated telepathic loading of Plutonian political history and its government's despotic apparatus had been cleared from their consciousness; the substance remained. Nor were they aware of any new or altered neuro-muscular capabilities or functions. They knew they had a job to do, and what the job was. They were on their own: no mercy from one side, no help from the other.

More than three-score sleeps had passed since their choreographed escape; only the events flashed through his mind; why they happened did not.

The Raven, on a lengthy umbilical-catwalk, had been tethered to the Guardian Station, ostensibly for maintenance after a servicing round of nearby communications boosters. The ship was skeleton-staffed. Brad and his companions had been secretly transferred beforehand to a cubicle adjacent access to the catwalk.

At Brad's signal, the Sentinels moved quickly. Hodak, acting as clumsily as he could, slammed and locked the passageway safety doors with the loudest noises he could generate, broadcasting the unusual activity to all within hearing range and for electronic sensor pickup.

They had lurched and stumbled noisily along the catwalk, Adari suppressing giggles. As the last of the six cleared in through the Raven's air lock, Hodak had hit "Emergency," on appropriate switches and the ship-to-station servicing lines went through quick-disconnect. Portals closed and locked.

Within seconds, Brad was on the bridge and his crew at rehearsed departure stations. The caretaker officer and his two aides stepped aside, silent, businesslike. They were Ram's men.

Adari hit the tether-disconnect. Disengaged, the catwalk coiled in toward the station as the ship edged away. Signaling Hodak for minimal repulse and acceleration to increase the drift, Brad ordered all hands immediately into accelo-nets. He increased thrusters to 'low' and, following a moment's pause into 'intermediate'. As soon as he sensed they could handle the acceleration he stepped the thrust up to successive levels.

The old tub creaked, pitched, rolled and yawed; lights flickered and dimmed; systems slipped into yellow or borderline red on half a dozen indicators, all recorded on the ship's log. The Raven all but flapped wings, and true to her name, took off. To the hundreds who watched from the station's portholes, the escape was real. The cover might hold.

The alarms went out from the Guardian Station to Sector Space Guard, and from there to a patroller conveniently distant.

Messages spunneled throughout the sector and to Earth and Luna: "Escape of dangerous felons,", "Sabotage of station surveillance system,", "Station 15 unable to respond in time," or "Immediate pursuit and capture essential" with abundant 'Expedites' and 'ASAPs' scattered throughout the text.

The scenario was exquisite. The word was out, and within hours, had spread system-wide.

##

A couple of million kay out, Ram's men boarded a well-stocked lifeboat and headed back to a prearranged pick-up. The Raven settled into outbound, Brad aware of an opportunity to merge with traffic at a not too distant spunnel gate.

##

Brad brought his mind back to the present as the flitter settled on the landing pad near air lock 22. Entering the pressure compartment and attaining atmospheric balance the Sentinels removed their suits and sealed them in wall lockers. The switch of weapons and holsters to clips on their inner coveralls completed, they strolled out of the storage room and mingled with a throng of citizen commuters. Moments later they were on a moving transit strip on their way to beautiful downtown Coldfield.

The strip cut across and through narrow streets and alleys lined with huts fused from the gray detritus of the planet.

Occasionally, a mall or square appeared along the transit route, lined with workshops, playgrounds, and colorful private houses or apartment complexes. Occasionally, they passed a dwarf tree or a flowering shrub in an earth-filled container.

Running and leaping alongside the moving strip as it passed slowly through stations, hawkers waved and shouted at the commuters and passers-by, inviting them to examine and purchase the novelties and artefacts they waved about or in nearby open air stalls. From above, lighted globes, strung close beneath the dome, cast a harsh, grotesque glare across the city.

People swarmed, and a raucous clamor shrilled along the tightly packed streets and alleys. Men, women and children in all shapes and sizes: tall, short, stocky, slender, organic, bionic, robotic, and combinations thereof. Hairstyles ranged from totally shaved skulls to elaborate hair-puffs, and garments from dreary, simple shifts to flamboyant, complex robes that twisted, circled, and knotted around their wearers.

This was Planet Pluto post-secession: a mixture of migrants from across the system. The tank town took them all, for itself or for Slingshot, or both. Those who stayed procreated, natural or clone, according to their customs or inclinations. The effect was a mixture of breeds whose interactions had brought out a bewildering patchwork of hybrid cults, philosophies and arts. Behavior ran the gamut; newcomers accepted or were overwhelmed.

Kumiko pointed ahead. The Condor loomed, a sprawling, multi-storied, down-at-the heels apartment-hotel, its surface colors akin to the low, drab rise on which it stood.

Disembarking the strip, the companions assembled, slipped into an alley and entered a portal into the crowded lobby. Joining the laughing, chattering throng, they squeezed their way to the desk robot, and registered as a group. Individual identicards ejected from an aperture, assigning them to a small apartment with sleeping cubicles off a common room. The communal lavatory and electronic bio-shower were down the hall.

Entering the apartment and tossing their gear into a corner, they kept up a running chatter. Hodak's main concern was where their next meal was coming from.

"Gotta find jobs or we don't eat," he barked as he hoisted his pack on to a sleep pad and tore at its flaps.

Kumiko and Adari opened and slammed cabinets, checked housekeeping supplies and "ooh-ed" and "ah-ed" each discovery. Myra and Brad stomped into a sleeping cubicle and heaved the sleeping pads first one way, then the other.

"Look in the corners," Hodak bawled across the narrow hall, "that's where the little buggers build their nests."

Myra shrieked and drew her sidearm as Brad stepped back. She set the ray-spread to conic and ran the beam from one end of the pad to the other, into the corners and along the walls. They inspected the results, laughed loudly, and went on to the next cubicle to repeat their exuberant performance.

Zolan strolled from one room to the next, sharing the action with his noisy friends, meanwhile scanning the walls, ceiling, floor, lighting fixtures, visi-screens and cabinets.

He rounded toward Brad and brushed against him. His fingers pressed their message. The others, watching, drew the correct conclusion.

The rooms were bugged, sight and sound.

Chapter NINE

Brad and Hodak pushed into the Charnel Pit,
Coldfield's popular tavern.

The bar-room was noisy, grimy and crowded. Incense streamers slid and coiled along the soil-fused floor, their dissipating pungency unable to disguise the acrid stench of sweaty bodies and unwashed garments.

The long bar was hidden by leaners. Narrow aisles snaked among benches and clustered tables around which boisterous, elbowing humanity teemed.

A coarsely seamed face along the bar turned, observed Brad and Hodak as they glanced around from inside the doorway. Whispers went down the line, jumped to the tables and around the room.

The tumult ground down as necks craned. A hum rose and fell as Brad and Hodak were inspected, commented upon, and judged. It didn't take long for the noise to return to its former level: the amenities of bar-rooms everywhere.

From where he stood, Hodak failed to see a table with a couple of empty chairs. They waited. Shortly, nudging Brad's arm, he nodded toward a table newly vacated against a wall.

They shoved and twisted through the narrow spaces to the table in time for Hodak to slam his hand, palm down, flat on the tabletop, glaring off a trio of competitors.

They sat, and Hodak pressed the glow-disk in the center of the table to summon the robo-dispenser. Meanwhile, they surveyed the throng.

Some types were recognizable; others would need to be guessed at. Mostly, they were familiar: spacefarers and space tug cowboys in tight-fitting foundation suits, construction stiffs in fitted helmets and spacer harnesses, clerks and tradesmen in business tunics, and street people in coarsely woven, grimy open-necked shirts and shorts. Slingshot technicians' jumpsuits were marked by distinctive shoulder patches.

Scattered in knots, or leaning against walls and supports, men and women, bare to the waist and sporting sheer breechcloths or none at all, flaunted their wares.

Brad recognized spoilsmen plying their trades. They were the dandies attired in colorful, skin-tight sports suits: thieves, pickpockets, high-tech gear rustlers, black marketeers, professional gamblers, and experts in all the scams that are or ever were.

Hand and shoulder weapons were everywhere: lashed to thighs or slung across backs, flat on tables or stacked along the bar. Churning and jostling, the swarm shifted constantly: singly, in couples and groups; from fledglings newly on the wing to old timers diminished by adversity. Most were in their prime: hard of face and body, wary, unbridled and self-seeking. They mixed freely.

At a table further along the wall near to where Brad and Hodak sat, Drummer gently swirled the contents of his drinking goblet. He was gaunt, well past middle years, with a high-boned countenance. His head was capped by snow-white hair trimmed straight across at his shoulders. Dressed simply, Drummer wore a dark cloak over a white, open-necked blouse tucked into loose breeches that ended a bit below his knees. He did not bear a weapon.

Drummer stared about and searched for strangers that might serve his purpose. When he heard that the Raven was at planet-fall, he had called for and reread all available newscasts and reports to refresh his recollections of their crimes, personal backgrounds, and escape.

Were they really escaped prisoners? Or were they agents of the UIPS? If they were fugitives they might be suckered into President Narval's mercenaries where their spacer skills would help fill the gaps. If they were revealed to be UIPS agents, they would be quickly disposed of, or manipulated and exploited through false leads to Narval's benefit. When no longer useful they would be terminated.

The newscasts and intelligence summaries on the escape were insufficient. Drummer's position as one of Narval's closest advisors, and his own private and secret ambitions, compelled him to learn more about the newcomers. How could they fit into his schemes?

Drummer ordered a fresh drink from a passing robo-dispenser. It arrived in a large snifter. Cradling the rounded bottom in his palm, he swished the gold-hued liquid with a gentle motion, eyes moving from the drink to the crowd to Brad and Hodak, and randomly round again.

A hard-muscled sledgehammer of a man barged into the Charnel Pit, sullen anger knotting his beefy face. His military uniform was skin-tight: a black tunic belted over blood-red breeches. The military helmet he wore was also halved black and red as were his holster and the handgrip of the protruding weapon. His black cavalier boots were made for swaggering. Formidable.

Deep, red-rimmed eyes glared from under the helmet's visor, searching for an open space along the bar. The line was solid.

"Open ranks," he snarled, and leaned heavily into the instant gap.

The barman rushed forward and raised his hand in respectful greeting.

"Honored to see you, Major Scarf," he said, "what'll it be?"

"Firehouse Red, and I don't mean the runny slops you peddle to the bar flies."

The barman dashed off and returned with a long-necked flagon and a large tumbler. He poured a slow-flowing, crimson liquor that bubbled as it settled. The barman set the brimming tumbler close to the Major's massive, thick-fingered hand.

The Firehouse Red disappeared in a single, spasmodic swallow, for all its slow-flowing nature. The barman stood by. The instant the tumbler slammed down, he refilled it, the ritual repeated in silence.

##

Finally, the sledgehammer hesitated, belched, and, with a satisfied sneer, scratched his crotch. The barman filled the tumbler a third time and turned away. Instantly, the flagon was yanked from his hand. The barman glanced back at the flagon, Major Scarf's face, grinned sheepishly, and kept going.

Placing the flagon alongside on the bar, Scarf raised the half-filled tumbler, fondled it, and tossed a scornful glance up and down the line. Few met his eyes, and those who did looked elsewhere as soon as he fixed on them. With a snort of contempt he wheeled to face the room. Removing his heavy helmet and lowering it to the ground alongside his leg, he leaned back to rest his elbows on the bar's edge.

His eyes scanned the room, sectoring the crowd and scrutinizing each person. Taking in the tables along the wall, he paused at Brad and Hodak, and scowled at them steadily through half-closed eyes.

Brad and Hodak returned Scarf's gaze with expressions cold and closed. The Major's eyes moved on and fixed on Drummer. His face twisted into a malevolent grin.

Chapter TEN

"Hey, everybody, quiet." Scarf's spit-and-phlegm bellow tamped the bar-room noise. It ground down.

Pointing at the solitary figure seated at the wall table, Scarf smirked and barked, "Give us the magic words, Drummer."

The crowd's eyes went from Scarf to Drummer and back. No one spoke.

"Drummer knows," Scarf added sarcasm to his tone, raising his finger to tap his temple. "The future is open to him."

Drummer sat, transfixed, staring at Scarf. His free hand closed into a tense fist, then opened to cap his knee.

"C'mon, Drummer," Scarf went on, derisively, "tell us what you're going to do to make things right for all of us, and how we'll all be prosperous after Slingshot cuts away."

His voice became harsher, gibing.

"You've been sittin' on that Plutonian Council for years, Drummer, pushing your pet ideas to loosen up controls here and give more civil liberties there. You call yourself a Progressive, whatever the hell that's supposed to mean. To me, you're a revolutionist, undermining Narval's government, and trying to cram your politics down our throats."

Scarf moved away from the bar, drink in hand.
Taking a long noisy swallow, he fixed his eyes on
Drummer from above the rim.

Lowering his drink, he belched again and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. Placing the tumbler on a nearby table he took another step toward Drummer.

"Being on the Council saves your neck for now, Drummer," he said with venom. "Soon as Narval gets wise to you, and kicks your tail off, I'll be coming after you."

He reached Drummer's table.

"On second thought, why wait that long," his voice changed to a snarl. "Now's as good a time as any."

He grasped the front of Drummer's cloak and jerked him to his feet.

"Tell me, old man, what can you do that Narval can't?"

The onlookers' silence hung heavily. The stale incense rose in eddies and diffused the shadows cast by the glowing wall sconces.

"Show's over, Scarf," said Drummer in a low voice, trying to twist away. "I've got to be on my way."

He placed his hand over Scarf's huge paw to loosen its grip.

They were of equal height, but Scarf, more than twice Drummer's mass and build, would have none of it.

"The hell you do," he growled, tightening his hold.

Scarf began to shake Drummer, at first slowly, then with growing violence. Drummer, unable to maintain balance, slipped to his knees. Scarf jerked upward, raising Drummer on unsteady feet. Ramming his face close, he cursed in a loud, coarse monotone, swinging Drummer in one direction, then another. Unable to disengage, Drummer was confused. His cloak tore, his hair fluttered about his face, and specks of spittle flew from his lips.

Brad and Hodak watched the action from where they sat. Scarf's sudden outburst was of more than passing interest. He had called his victim "Drummer," a name familiar to Brad through the many intelligence briefings he had been given during indoctrination; also, "Scarf" was a name used in the immigration clerk's call from the landing site.

Other than military, who and what was Scarf, and why was he tormenting Drummer? More important, could this bar-room brawl be exploited to the Sentinels' advantage? They desperately needed contacts within Narval's regime. Their mission did not allow the luxury of time. An opportunity had just fallen into his lap. Brad leaned toward Hodak.

"The bruiser," he said. "Take him down, but easy."

Hodak shot a quick glance at Brad, rose and shambled between the tables until he was behind the sledgehammer.

Tapping Scarf on the shoulder, he said quietly, "Hey, c'mon, let the old geezer alone. He was just minding his…"

Scarf reacted with incredible speed for his size.
Shoving Drummer away, he whirled, arm extended.
Powered by the force of his pivot, the edge of his
rigid hand aimed directly at Hodak's throat.

Hodak stepped back and to the side, gripped Scarf's thick wrist in his muscle-corded hands. Using his attacker's momentum, Hodak twisted and bent. The Major's huge body catapulted through the air and crashed on to a table and its several chairs, sending the occupants spinning.

A hand appeared from nowhere and pulled Scarf's pistol from its holster. In seconds, Brad was back at his table. The bar-room went deathly silent.

Scarf bounded up, spitting saliva, floor dust and curses. He reached for his weapon and gaped when he felt emptiness.

Recovering, hunched forward, he charged Hodak, murder in his eyes.

Freed, Drummer stepped back to the wall, shaken, not understanding what was happening. He searched for a safe place.

Focusing on the struggle he recognized Hodak as one of the escaped prisoners he had been speculating about. Taking a chance, he moved toward the table from where Brad watched the action and the crowd.

Hodak, waiting for Scarf's charge, stood balanced until the last fraction of a second, then stepped aside. Scarf passed like a juggernaut and smashed into the bar.

Leaning heavily over the bar, breathing in convulsive gasps, Scarf turned his head to glare at Hodak. Running his hand down his thigh he felt again for his weapon. Eyes narrowed to slits, he searched along the filth-strewn floor. Scanning, his eyes passed the table where Brad sat, stopped, and snapped back.

The weapon, distinctive by its red and black grip, lay there. He saw Brad watching, and Drummer nearby, back to the wall.

Scarf lunged at Hodak, arms grappling. Hodak danced back and away. As Scarf passed, Hodak grasped his wrist and elbow, twisted, and curved Scarf's arm back and up between his shoulder blades.

Hodak was gentle. With his free hand he probed and manipulated nerve centers in Scarf's neck and shoulders. Scarf dropped to his knees, then slipped back on to his rump, legs spread, arms slack, face perplexed. It was enough.

He sat there, shaking his head to clear it. Looking up, he saw Hodak standing a short distance away, and beyond, a ring of faces, several grinning, others frightened and wary. Shifting his eyes to where his weapon lay, Scarf glared at Brad and Drummer.

The silence was broken by the shuffle of Scarf groping upright, using a nearby table for support. He lurched to the bar and leaned over it for several seconds. Straightening, he grasped his helmet with one hand, wrapped the other around the flagon of Firehouse Red, and stalked out of the Charnel Pit.

Chapter ELEVEN

The bar-room's heavy vapors seemed to cease their dreary ballet. An uneasy cackle, strident and jarring, erupted from a corner, accompanied by the flat slap of a hard hand against the bar's rough counter. The tension dissolved into a ripple of raucous laughter. The hubbub resumed, and quickly returned to its former level.

Myra, followed by Zolan, Adari and Kumiko, entered the bar-room, spotted Brad and Hodak, and moved toward them, snatching empty stools along the way. Placing the stools, they encircled the table.

Their eyes took in Scarf's heavy-duty red-black weapon, and then Brad and Hodak, elbows on table, scanning the crowd. They saw Drummer nearby and noted his disheveled appearance.

They rose silently, rearranged their seats, and sat again, backs against the wall. Kumiko fixed her eyes on the entryway; Adari scanned in the opposite direction, taking in the bar. Zolan and Myra joined Brad and Hodak to observe the roisterers resume their bar-room habits.

Drummer still showed his embarrassment, apprehension and rage. His eyes darted from the doorway to Hodak to Brad. Brad turned his head slightly to take him in, then pointed to an overturned stool nearby.

"Pull up and sit a while."

"You in charge?" Drummer asked.

"No," Brad said, "we're each on our own. Just socializing."

He motioned at the stool again.

"C'mon, join us."

Drummer looked closely at Brad, then at the others who ignored him. Brad's expression was bland, neutral.

Drummer felt certain that Scarf would return soon with reinforcements. He had to get out, fast, and he needed an escort to safety. Beyond that, he wanted to know why the squat powerhouse, now sitting calmly at the table, had intervened. He must have realized that his interference had been made at great personal risk.

Drummer righted the stool and stared intently at Hodak as he sat. Hodak, sensing Drummer's scrutiny, glanced sideways at him, winked straight-faced, and returned to observe the crowd.

Drummer finally turned to Brad, convinced he was the leader of this pack.

"We'd better get out of here, now," he said, his tone urgent. "Scarf'll be back as soon as he collects a few of his goons."

"What was it about?" Brad asked.

"No time for talk," Drummer replied, gesturing his impatience. "We've got to get away from here, and I mean right now."

"Sure, but who is that guy?"

"Major Scarf, Chief of Internal Security for President Narval. He has his own troops, and I don't doubt that he's lining them up right now." Drummer's fingertips tapped the table in nervous staccato. "Let's get out of here. Now."

Brad stood, and the others rose with him. "Lead the way," he motioned Drummer toward the doorway. "We're not familiar with the territory."

"Leave that to me," said Drummer.

Brad hefted Scarf's weapon, slipped it into 'safe' and, passing the bar, handed it to the bartender with a nod that was returned with a respectful wave.

Chapter TWELVE

Mixing with the street people, Drummer in sight up ahead, they moved swiftly. Adari trailed Drummer; Brad next followed by Myra and Kumiko. Zolan and Hodak brought up the rear. Drummer successfully resisted the temptation to look back.

Zolan tensed, activating the mind-mike in his armpit. Brad acknowledged by stepping up his pace. He passed Adari and drew alongside Drummer.

"Your buddy, Scarf, must have had a friend in the bar," he said. "We're being tailed."

"Another hundred meters. Cut into the alley on the left."

Drummer responded. "It'll take us through a maze that still confounds the street people. We'll have a better chance in there to lose whoever is following."

A corner loomed. They squeezed into a narrow, rubble-strewn passageway between high, rough walls. Stumbling along the barely lighted shaft they entered an alley, equally shabby, crowded with street people, refuse, and abandoned machinery.

They sped along the alley, noting its darkened, fuser-formed doorways, some empty, others clogged with trash. Inside, they saw the shadowy outlines of men, huddled women and children.

Drummer twisted from one alley into the next, and then another.

He ducked through a gap in one wall, squeezed along a narrow hallway and exited into an open space. They packed up close, running and stumbling.

Drummer slowed next to a wall of composite blocks. Several were missing, leaving a space through which they squirmed. It was tighter than they had experienced. In near darkness, they had reached a dead end.

Ahead was loose rubble forming a heap about two meters high. Drummer clawed his way around the side. He motioned the others forward and slipped out of sight.

Following one behind the other, they saw an opening in the surface. Responding to Drummer's beckoning, they dropped into its darkness. The fall was less than a couple of meters. A light glowed from a wall to just enough to illuminate Drummer.

They were in a small, roughly rounded chamber.
The walls were fused rubble, irregular and jagged.
The floor was a mixture of Plutonian detritus.

Drummer knelt beside a rock that protruded from the wall. He twisted the rock, pulled, and pushed it sideways. Reaching into the vacated space, he placed his palm on a flat, smooth disk.

A low hum from the wall. A fissure formed where the wall met the trash-laden floor. The breach lengthened and curved, its ends meeting the wall. The section dropped away into darkness.

"Move, move," Drummer snarled his impatience. "Scarf has this entire sector blocked out by now. He'll throw his gangs into the alleys and cover every square meter. These subsurface crawl spaces and links are our only way. Feel for the ladder."

He lowered himself through the opening and vanished.

Brad was committed. His glance ordered the others to follow Drummer. Hodak passed his light to Brad and dropped through first, then Zolan followed Myra, Adari and Kumiko. Brad dropped through and pushed the cover up until it snapped. Closed. He felt vibrations above him, then, after several seconds, silence.

"Must be spreading the dust of our tracks and the outline of the cover," Zolan murmured, looking up from immediately below.

The ladder was rickety, and the shaft narrow and long. When Brad reached bottom, he was in a low gallery, about two meters square, hacked out of the rock. They were in the hub of a dozen passageways that led off in as many directions from low entries.

Drummer bent and disappeared through one of the entries. One after the other, they followed.

The entry led into a utility service tunnel, the walls lined with scores of braided cables and banks of wall switches and junctions. Neutro-lighted sconces glowed at intervals, providing dim direction to their flight.

Scuttling in single file and dodging cables slung between supporting columns, they covered distance swiftly. Brad moved up behind Drummer, replacing Hodak who dropped back to rear guard immediately behind Zolan.

"Scarf knows about these utility passages, and that we would head for them," Drummer gasped over his shoulder. "What he doesn't know is which access and branches we took and where we'll surface. A slight advantage, if we act quickly."

They scampered and slithered for more than half an hour. "Looks like we're the only ones down here," said Brad.

Drummer halted to recover breath. The line closed up.

"Normal," Drummer gasped. "These passages were abandoned years ago, after we switched to local transmission from control modules suspended beneath the dome. Too much trouble to collapse the subsurface tunnels, I suppose. Also, we had to consider the surface effects of a collapse. Couldn't afford the chance. As you see, the network is still useful."

He shot a quick glance at Brad, then ahead along their route.

"Don't get the impression I've got to run from Scarf," Drummer said, heaving another deep breath, "or even to avoid him under ordinary circumstances. Obviously, he was drunk. My presence in the bar-room gave him an opportunity to enhance his image. Your companion's intervention, I admit, relieved the pressure, but the method he chose may prove unfortunate."

"Why this melodramatic escape?"

"To avoid a confrontation in which Scarf, backed up by his troops, would be in complete control; a confrontation in which you couldn't possibly hold your own. The encounter has already caused me embarrassment. I don't relish a repetition." Drummer paused. "And there's another reason."

"Oh?"

"I know who you are, and the circumstances that brought you and your associates to Planet Pluto. I want to know more."

"Why?"

"My answer to that depends on what I learn about you and your companions."

Drummer slowed to a fast walk, searching spaces between the bundles of the thick cables.

"So that you know," he said, "we're heading for my villa-dome about five kay from the city."

Drummer grunted that he'd found what he had searched for. Clawing under a flap, he uncovered a depression in the wall alongside a cable junction. He pressed himself in behind the junction and into a cranny, motioning to Brad. One by one, they squeezed through, and found themselves at the foot of a flex-ladder. Drummer climbed; they followed.

They emerged through a manhole into a kiosk next to a transit strip. Darting from the kiosk Drummer boarded the strip and nodded back to Brad to join him. Within moments they were all gliding toward an air lock leading to the outside.

Entering the air lock, they hurried into space suits from the public service rack, checked each other's seals and oxygen reserves, tested the communications and pressurization systems and crowded into the pressure-equalization chamber. Air lock and suit pressures up, balanced and checked, Drummer jerked a lever and, a moment later, they ducked under the rising panel to the outside.

Running along the ramp Drummer flashed his suit lamps at a parked robo-taxi. The signal activated the craft and it was in ready status when they reached it. Boarding first, Drummer keyed in coordinates. As the last Sentinel scrambled through the hatch he hit the lift button. The taxi rose and curved away.