Conrad Helier's disciples had, in fact, bound themselves with edicts and promises-and had kept them, after a fashion. Silas believed that he had kept them better than most, in spite of the heresies which had crept upon his mind and condemned him, in the end, to confusion. He had kept almost all his promises, if only in order to ensure that whatever else he lost, he would have clean hands clean hands.
Now he was looking out at the factory again, at the robot butchers working clinically, tirelessly, and altruistically for the greater good of ambitious humankind. He presumed that the image was meant to be symbolic, but he refused to try to figure out exactly what it was symbolic of, and why it had been laid before him now.
The robot butchers tirelessly plied their gleaming instruments for a few seconds more, and then dissolved into a vision of cars racing through city streets, speeded up until they were little more than colored blurs, racing ceaselessly past.
But it is true, he reflected, that some of those of us who are left over from the old world remain anchored to that world by our habits of mind. Some of the old haven't yet become accustomed to the new outlook, and perhaps I'm one of them-but we can't be expected to shed the superficialities of our heritage as easily as a snake sheds its skin. We do evolve-but we can't do it overnight. Conrad would have understood that. Whoever is using his face must be younger than Conrad, and younger than me-but not as young as Damon. He surely belongs to the new old, not to the true old.
The scene changed again; this time it was an episode of some popular soap opera, but the characters were mercifully silent. As they exchanged insults and bared their overwrought souls they were rendered impotent and absurd by silence. A girl slapped a man across the face; without the sound track there was no telling why, but the blow wasn't halfhearted. These days, blows rarely were. Nobody pulled their punches for fear of hurting people, because everybody knew that people couldn't be hurt-even "primitives" had some degree of artificial insulation from actual bodily harm. Hardly anyone went entirely unaugmented in the world, and the prevailing view was that if they wanted to do so, they had to accept the risks.
All the old inhibitions were dying, Silas reminded himself, in an appropriately grim fashion. A radically different spectrum of dos and don'ts was establishing itself in the cities of what would soon be the twenty-third century.
Silas's head, isolated within its own private pocket universe, took off from the cape, mounted atop a huge sleek rocket. His eyes were looking up into the deepening sky, and the sound which filled his ears was a vast, angry, undeniable roar of pure power, pure might might.
It went on, and on, and on. . . .
In the end, Silas couldn't help but call out to his tormentors, to beg them to answer his questions, even to lecture him like a recalcitrant schoolboy if they felt the need. He knew as he did it that he was proving them right, demonstrating that the limits of his freedom extended far beyond the straps binding him to his ignominy, but he no longer cared. He wanted and needed to know what they were doing to him, and why, and how long it would last.
He wanted, and needed, to understand understand, no matter what price he had to pay in patience and humility and craven politeness.
Sixteen.
T.
he message was dumped shortly after you boarded the plane at Kaunakakai," Rajuder Singh told Damon, when the import of the words displayed on the screen had had time to sink in. "When Karol decided to send you here instead of Los Angeles he couldn't have foreseen anything as outrageous as this, but it's better proof than any he could could have imagined that his instincts were right." have imagined that his instincts were right."
"If he had such faith in his instincts," Damon said sourly, "why didn't he do me the courtesy of explaining what he wanted me to do, and why?"
"He thought that telling you his plan would make it impossible to carry through. He seems to be of the opinion that you always do the opposite of anything he suggests, simply because it's his suggestion."
Damon could understand how Karol Kachellek might have formed that impression over the years, but he felt that it was an injustice nevertheless. The matters on which he had habitually defied Karol in his younger days had all been trivial; he was now an adult and this was not not a trivial matter. "It's crazy," he said, referring to the message. "It's completely crazy." a trivial matter. "It's crazy," he said, referring to the message. "It's completely crazy."
"Yes it is," said the dark-skinned man. "Denials are going out, of course-not just from our people but from Interpol and the doctors who attended the womb in which your embryo developed. Your progress from egg to adult has been mapped as scrupulously as that of any individual in the history of the world. The lie is astonishingly blatant-but that only makes it all the more peculiar. It's attracting public attention and public discussion, I'm afraid. Together with Silas Arnett's supposed confession, it's getting coverage on the worst kinds of current affairs and talk shows. I suppose any man who lives a hundred and twenty years might expect to make a few enemies, but I can't understand why anyone would want to attack you you in this bizarre way. Can you?" in this bizarre way. Can you?"
It occurred to Damon that some of the people he had ordered Madoc Tamlin to investigate might have resented the fact-and might possibly be anxious that the buying-power of Conrad Helier's inheritance might pose as great a threat to their plan as Interpol or the friends and allies of Silas Arnett. All he said to Rajuder Singh, however, was: "No, I can't."
"It'll be a nine-day wonder, of course," Singh observed, "if it even lasts that long. Unfortunately, such slanders sometimes linger in the mind even after convincing rebuttals have been put forward. It really was the best course of action to remove you from harm's way as quickly as possible. We're truly sorry that you've been caught up in all this-it really has nothing to do with you."
"What has has it to do with?" Damon asked, his voice taut with frustration. "What are you people up to and who wants to stop you? Why is this such a it to do with?" Damon asked, his voice taut with frustration. "What are you people up to and who wants to stop you? Why is this such a bad time bad time for all this to blow up?" for all this to blow up?"
"I can't tell you what we're doing," Singh said, with a note of apology in his voice that almost sounded sincere, "and we honestly don't know why we're being attacked in this fashion. All I can say is that we're doing everything we can to calm the situation. It can only be a matter of time before Silas is found, and then. . . ."
"I'm not so sure of that," Damon said, cutting short the string of platitudes. "Maybe he will be found and maybe he won't, but finding him and catching the people who took him are two different things. This whole thing may look amateurish and stupid-just typical Eliminator nonsense taken to a new extreme-but it's not. That tape of Silas could have been edited to look real but it was edited to look fake look fake. All the artlessness in this seems to have much subtler thought behind it-and real power too. The kidnapping itself is a case in point-a confusing compound of the brutal and the clever. The same is true of my involvement: one day I'm getting sly messages pushed under my door, the next I'm being publicly denounced in an incredible fashion. In between times, the girl Silas was entertaining is spirited away-but not until after after the police have questioned her, investigated her thoroughly, and decided that she's not involved. To add even further to the sum of dissimulation, while Karol Kachellek is busy insisting that there's absolutely nothing for me to worry about he's actually planning to have me bundled up and sent to some stupid mock-volcanic island in the middle of nowhere where even the local ecology is a blatant fake." the police have questioned her, investigated her thoroughly, and decided that she's not involved. To add even further to the sum of dissimulation, while Karol Kachellek is busy insisting that there's absolutely nothing for me to worry about he's actually planning to have me bundled up and sent to some stupid mock-volcanic island in the middle of nowhere where even the local ecology is a blatant fake."
"I really am sorry," Rajuder Singh assured him. "Alas, it's not for me to explain matters even if I could. I think that Eveline Hywood might be willing to take your call, though, once we've gone down."
"Down where?"
Damon had so far been under the impression that the room he was in had only three doors, one of them part of a pair. Singh had closed the double doors through which they had entered but two others stood half-open, one offering a glimpse of a bedroom while the other gave access to a narrow corridor leading to a kitchen. Singh now demonstrated the error of Damon's assumption by going to the wall alongside the kitchen door and pressing a hidden switch of some kind. A section of "wall" slid aside to reveal an empty space-presumably an elevator.
"So the mountain's hollow as well as fake," Damon said incredulously. "Down where the magma ought to be there's some kind of secret laboratory, where my father's old research team is laboring away on some project too delicate to be divulged to the world."
"It's not a laboratory," Singh told him. "It's just a hiding place. There isn't any legion of white-coated workers conducting secret experiments-although I suppose it's possible that someone thinks there's more going on here than there is. The original setup was built more than a hundred and fifty years ago-long before we acquired it, of course-as a nuclear bunker. It was a rich man's fantasy: a hidey-hole where he and a few friends could wait out the coming holocaust. The plague wars were running riot at the time and the fear of escalation was acute. A hundred years after the bunker was built-still some little time before the island came into our our hands-someone equally rich and equally paranoid expanded it with the aid of primitive gantzers. I presume that he was more anxious about an asteroid strike or some other natural disaster than about nuclear war, but I don't know for sure. I suppose it would still be capable of fulfilling any of those functions, were the need to arise." hands-someone equally rich and equally paranoid expanded it with the aid of primitive gantzers. I presume that he was more anxious about an asteroid strike or some other natural disaster than about nuclear war, but I don't know for sure. I suppose it would still be capable of fulfilling any of those functions, were the need to arise."
"But you you aren't interested in anything as absurdly melodramatic as that, of course," Damon said sarcastically. aren't interested in anything as absurdly melodramatic as that, of course," Damon said sarcastically.
Singh was standing beside the open door, politely indicating that Damon should precede him into the empty space. Damon stayed where he was, waiting for more answers.
"We're interested in privacy," Singh told him brusquely. "It's an increasingly rare commodity in a world of rampant nano-technology. We're interested in independence-not political independence, just creative independence."
"And this we we, I suppose, comprises Karol Kachellek and Eveline Hywood-if she should ever return to Earth-and other old chums of Conrad Helier. Maybe you even have Conrad Helier himself hidden away down there, dead to the world but still slaving away at all the labor of creation that God somehow left undone? Perhaps that's what Operator one-oh-one believes, at any rate."
"Please, Mr. Hart," the thin man said plaintively.
"I'll find out what this is all about eventually," Damon told him, "one way or another." He was wary enough not to let bravado lead him to give too much away, though. It might be inadvisable to boast about Madoc Tamlin's capabilities to people who might be just as reluctant to be found out as the mysterious Operator 101 was.
The words displayed on Singh's screen suddenly disappeared, to be replaced by an urgently flashing message which simply said: READ NOW. The system had presumably been programmed with nets set to trawl the cyberspatial sea for items of a particular kind, and one of them had just made contact.
"You'd better come look at this," Damon said.
Singh was reluctant to come away from the open elevator, but he did come. When he saw the message, though, his suspicious expression cleared. "Excuse me," he murmured, as he moved to obey the flashing injunction.
When the thin man's skeletal fingers brushed the keypad beneath the screen the flashing words were replaced by an image of a man sitting on a perfectly ordinary chair. Damon was not in the least surprised to recognize Silas Arnett. Silas was no longer under any obvious restraint, but there was a curious expression in his eyes, and both of his hands were heavily bandaged. He began speaking in a flat monotone.
Damon knew immediately that the image and the voice were both fakes, derived with calculated crudity from the kind of template he used routinely in his own work.
"The situation was out of hand," the false Arnett said dully. "All attempts to limit environmental spoliation by legislation had failed, and all hope that the population would stabilize or begin to decline as a result of individual choice was gone. We were still winning the battle to provide enough food for everyone, even though the distribution system left seven or eight billions lacking, but we couldn't cope with the sheer physical presence presence of so many people in the world. Internal technology was developing so rapidly that it was obvious to anyone with half a brain that off-the-shelf emortality was less than a lifetime away, and that it would revolutionize the economics of medicine. Wars over lebensraum were being fought on every continent, with all kinds of weapons, including of so many people in the world. Internal technology was developing so rapidly that it was obvious to anyone with half a brain that off-the-shelf emortality was less than a lifetime away, and that it would revolutionize the economics of medicine. Wars over lebensraum were being fought on every continent, with all kinds of weapons, including real real plagues: killing plagues. plagues: killing plagues.
"When Conrad first put it to us that what the world needed more desperately than anything else was a full stop to reproduction-an end to the whole question of individual choice in matters of fecundity-nobody said 'No! That's horrible!' We all said 'Yes, of course-but can it be done?' When Conrad said 'There's always a way,' no one challenged him on the grounds of propriety.
"I couldn't see how we might go about designing a plague of sterility, because there were no appropriate models in nature-how could there be, when the logic of natural selection demands fertility and fecundity?-and I couldn't envisage a plausible physiology, let alone a plausible biochemistry, but Conrad's way of thinking was quite different from mine. Even in those days, all but a few of the genes we claimed to have 'manufactured' were actually simple modifications of existing genes or the chance products of lab-assisted mutation. We had little or no idea how to go about creating genes from scratch which would have entirely novel effects-but Conrad had a weird kind of genius for that kind of thing. He knew knew that he could figure out a way, using the somatic transformer packages that were then routinely used to treat genetic deficiency diseases. that he could figure out a way, using the somatic transformer packages that were then routinely used to treat genetic deficiency diseases.
"I wonder, sometimes, how many other groups must have had conversations very like ours. 'Wouldn't it be great if we could design a virus that would sterilize almost everyone on earth without the kinds of side effects that accompany pollution-induced sterility?' . . . 'Yes, wouldn't it-what a shame there's no obvious place to start.' Was there anywhere in the world in the 2070s where bioengineers gathered where such conversations didn't didn't take place? Maybe some of the others took it further; maybe they even followed the same thread of possibility that Conrad pointed out to us. Maybe Conrad wasn't the only one who could have done it, merely the one who hit the target first. I don't know-but I do know that if you'd put that kind of loaded pistol into the hand of any bioengineer of the period the overwhelming probability is that the trigger would have been squeezed. take place? Maybe some of the others took it further; maybe they even followed the same thread of possibility that Conrad pointed out to us. Maybe Conrad wasn't the only one who could have done it, merely the one who hit the target first. I don't know-but I do know that if you'd put that kind of loaded pistol into the hand of any bioengineer of the period the overwhelming probability is that the trigger would have been squeezed.
"We had no desire to discriminate: we set out to sterilize everybody everybody in the world-and we succeeded. That's what saved the world from irredeemable ecocatastrophe. If the population had continued to increase, so that nanotech emortality spread like wildfire through a world which was still vomiting babies from billions of wombs, nothing could have restrained the negative Malthusian checks. The so-called plague wars had already proved themselves inadequate to cut population drastically in a world of advanced medical care, but there were plenty more and even nastier weapons to hand. The world really was set to go bad in a big way; all that remained for sane men to do was exercise the least worst option, and that's what Conrad Helier did. in the world-and we succeeded. That's what saved the world from irredeemable ecocatastrophe. If the population had continued to increase, so that nanotech emortality spread like wildfire through a world which was still vomiting babies from billions of wombs, nothing could have restrained the negative Malthusian checks. The so-called plague wars had already proved themselves inadequate to cut population drastically in a world of advanced medical care, but there were plenty more and even nastier weapons to hand. The world really was set to go bad in a big way; all that remained for sane men to do was exercise the least worst option, and that's what Conrad Helier did.
"What happened in the last decade of the twenty-first century and the first decades of the twenty-second wasn't a tragedy at all-but the fact that it was seen seen as a tragedy, and a terrible threat to the future of the species, increased its beneficial effects. The Crash was a common enemy, and it created such a sense of common cause, focused on the development of artificial wombs and the securing of adequate supplies of sperms and ova, that for the first time in history the members of the human race were all on the same side. as a tragedy, and a terrible threat to the future of the species, increased its beneficial effects. The Crash was a common enemy, and it created such a sense of common cause, focused on the development of artificial wombs and the securing of adequate supplies of sperms and ova, that for the first time in history the members of the human race were all on the same side.
"We're still living on the legacy of that break in history, in spite of attempts made by madmen like the Eliminators to set us all at one another's throats again. We're still all on the same side, all engaged in the same ongoing quest-and we have Conrad Helier to thank for that. You have no conception of the debt which the world owes to that man."
"You don't regret what you did, then?" asked a whispery voice from off-stage.
"No," said Arnett's simulacrum dispiritedly. "If you're looking for some sign of repentance, forget it. What we did was necessary, and right right."
"And yet you've kept it secret all these years," the voice observed. "When you were first accused of having done this, you denied it. When you realized that further denial was useless, you attempted to take sole responsibility-not out of pride, but out of a desire to protect your collaborators. The truth had, in the end, to be extracted from you. Why is that, if you aren't ashamed of what you did?"
"Because there are people in the world like you you," the ersatz Silas countered unenthusiastically. "Because PicoCon and the other purveyors of cheap longevity have ensured that the world is still overfull of people whose moral horizons are absurdly narrow and horribly bleak. For every person alive in 2095 who would have understood our reasons, there were half a hundred who would have said 'How dare you do this to me? me? How dare you take away How dare you take away my my freedom of self-determination, even for the good of the world?' Too many people would have seen sterilization as a theft, as a loss of power. freedom of self-determination, even for the good of the world?' Too many people would have seen sterilization as a theft, as a loss of power.
"Many young people nowadays, born into a world of artificial wombs, find it frankly repulsive that women ever had to give birth like wild animals-but too many members of the older generations still feel that they were robbed, changed without their consent. Karol Kachellek and Eveline Hywood are still doing important work; they never wanted to be sidetracked by the kind of publicity the revelations which you've forced out of me would generate-will generate, I suppose." generate, I suppose."
"What right did you have to make decisions for all mankind?" the second synthetic voice asked, still maintaining its stage-whisper tone. "What right did you have to play God?"
"What gave us the right," Arnett's image replied, the voice as relentlessly dull as it had been throughout, "was our understanding. Conrad had the vision, and the artistry required to develop the means. The responsibility fell to him-you might as well ask what right he had to surrender it to others, given that those others were mostly ill-educated egomaniacs whose principal short-term aim was to slaughter their neighbors. Someone had to be prepared to take control take control, or the world was doomed. When you know that people won't accept the gift of their own salvation, you have only two choices: to force it on them, or to leave them to destruction. It was better for the world to be saved-and it was better for the world to believe that it had been saved by a fortunate combination of miracles rather than by means of a conspiracy of scientists. Conrad always wanted to do what was best for the world, and keeping our actions secret was simply a continuation of that policy."
"What of the unhappiness caused by the frustration of maternal instinct?" asked the interrogative voice, in a tone devoid of any real indignation. "What of the misery generated by the brutal wrench which you administered to human nature? There are many-and not merely those who survived the Crash-who would argue that ours is now a perverted society, and that the reckless fascination with violence which is increasingly manifest in younger generations is a result of the perversion of human nature occasioned by universal sterilization."
"The empire of nature ended with the development of language," the fake Arnett replied. "Ever since then, human beings have been the product of their technology. All talk of human nature is misguided romantic claptrap. The history of human progress has been the history of our transcendence and suppression of the last vestiges of instinctive behavior. If there was any maternal instinct left in 2070, its annihilation was a thoroughly good thing. To blame any present unhappiness or violence on the loss or frustration of any kind of genetic heritage is both stupid and ridiculous."
There was an obvious cut at this point. The next thing Arnett's image said was: "Who told you about all this? It can't have been Karol or Eveline. Somebody must have put the pieces together-somebody with expert knowledge and a cunning turn of mind. Who?"
"That's of no importance," the other voice said. "There's only one more matter which needs to be determined, and that's the identity which Conrad Helier adopted after faking his death. We have reason to believe that he reappeared in the world after an interval of some twenty-five years, having undergone extensive reconstructive somatic engineering. We have reason to believe that he now uses the name Damon Hart. Is that true, Dr. Arnett?"
"Yes," said the voice which sounded like Arnett's, ringing false because his head was bowed and his lips hardly moved. "The person who calls himself Damon Hart is really Conrad Helier. It's true."
The tape ended there.
"I wonder how many other installments there are to come," Damon said.
Singh's lips moved as if he intended to reply, but he choked off the sound of the first syllable as his ears caught another sound, faint and distant.
Damon cocked his own ear, straining to catch and identify the sound. "Helicopters," he said, when he had leaped to that conclusion. Singh, who was evidently a more cautious man than he, had not yet made the same leap-but when Damon said it he was ready to believe it.
"We have to go down," Singh said. "There's no time to lose!"
"They're only little little helicopters," Damon said, using expertise gained from hours spent watching sportsmen whizz over the beaches of California. "The kind you can fold up and store away in the back of a van. They must be local-they wouldn't have the range to get here from Lanai." Instead of obeying Rajuder Singh's urgent request to go to the elevator he moved toward the window that looked out in the direction from which the noise was coming. helicopters," Damon said, using expertise gained from hours spent watching sportsmen whizz over the beaches of California. "The kind you can fold up and store away in the back of a van. They must be local-they wouldn't have the range to get here from Lanai." Instead of obeying Rajuder Singh's urgent request to go to the elevator he moved toward the window that looked out in the direction from which the noise was coming.
"It doesn't matter how small they are," Singh complained, becoming increasingly agitated. "What matters is that they're not ours ours. I don't know how they got here, but they're not here on any kind of routine business-and if they're after somebody, it has to be you."
Seventeen.
D.
amon knew, deep down, that he ought to do as Rajuder Singh said. The sensible thing to do was to move to the elevator and let it carry him down to the hidey-hole beneath the fake volcano, not merely because that was the way that safety lay, but also because he might find answers down there to some of his most urgent questions. He also knew, however, that Karol Kachellek's estimation of his reflexive perversity had a good deal of truth in it. Obedience had never been his strong suit.
"There's plenty of time," he said to Rajuder Singh, although he knew that there wasn't.
He peered out of the window, looking up at the crowns of the trees that fringed the flower garden. The thick foliage blocked out the greater part of the sky and anything that might be flying there-but not for long.
When the first tiny helicopter finally came into view, zooming over the topmost branches of the nearest trees, Damon's first reaction was to relax. The machine wasn't big enough to carry human passengers, or even a human pilot. The sound of its whining motor was like the buzz of a worker bee, and he knew that the AI guiding it could not be any more intelligent than a worker bee. As it passed rapidly out of sight again, wheeling above the roof of the bungalow, Damon turned back to Rajuder Singh, intending to reassure him-but the expression on the other man's face told him that Singh was not about to be reassured, and his own composure began to dissolve. In a world of rampant nanotech, small did not mean harmless-far from it.
It occurred to Damon then to wonder where the tiny machine-and its partner, which was already visible-had come from. Such toys had insufficient range to have been launched from Lanai or Kahoolawe, but if they had not come from another island, they must have come from the deck of a ship. What ship? How had it come to be here so soon after his own arrival-unless that arrival had somehow been anticipated?
"Please, Mr. Hart," said the desperate Rajuder Singh, coming forward as he spoke and reaching for a pouch suspended beside his beltpack. Damon guessed immediately what it was the thin man was reaching for, and was struck by the sudden thought that he didn't know for sure for sure whose side Rajuder Singh was on. Everything the man had told him had seemed plausible enough-but the fact remained that Steve Grayson had whose side Rajuder Singh was on. Everything the man had told him had seemed plausible enough-but the fact remained that Steve Grayson had kidnapped kidnapped him and brought him here against his will. What if it had him and brought him here against his will. What if it had not not been Karol Kachellek who had given the order? What if Karol Kachellek had sent the helicopters in hot pursuit from the deck of the been Karol Kachellek who had given the order? What if Karol Kachellek had sent the helicopters in hot pursuit from the deck of the Kite? Kite?
As the miniature gun came out of its hiding place Damon reacted with a streetfighter's instinct. He hadn't been able to do anything about Grayson's weapon, but the situation was different now. The blow he aimed with the edge of his right hand was delivered with practiced efficiency, knocking the hand which held the gun aside. That left Singh's midriff wide open, and Damon lashed out with his right foot, ploughing his heel into the thin man's solar plexus. The sudden shock put Singh down, as it would have put anyone down, no matter how efficient his internal technology was. Singh's mouth had been open as he prepared to speak, but all that came out now was a sharp gasp of surprise. Damon pinned the thin man's right arm to the floor with his foot and knelt down in order to pluck the weapon out of his hand.
The gun was a darter, even less powerful than Grayson's pepperbox. It was incapable of inflicting any lethal injury, although its darts were presumably capable of inducing paralysis for several minutes, until his internal technology could rally itself to cancel out the effects of the toxin.
Singh pried his right arm loose and tried to grab the gun, wailing: "You don't understand!"
Damon lifted the weapon out of his captive's reach but didn't hit him again. "Nor do you," he muttered through clenched teeth.
The noise of the whining helicopters was louder now; both machines were hovering close to the house, perhaps coming in to land. They were descending slowly, presumably because the machines were delicate and the available space between the flower beds was by no means generous.
Now there was another sound audible beyond and beneath the whine of the toys: a much deeper drone, of the kind a real real helicopter might make. There was no possibility that a helicopter might make. There was no possibility that a real real helicopter could have been launched from the deck of the helicopter could have been launched from the deck of the Kite Kite-but there was was a possibility that the big machine was in pursuit of the little ones rather than complementing their mission. All was confusion, and confusion heaped upon confusion-and Damon had not the slightest idea what he ought to do next. He only knew that he had to make up his mind very quickly. a possibility that the big machine was in pursuit of the little ones rather than complementing their mission. All was confusion, and confusion heaped upon confusion-and Damon had not the slightest idea what he ought to do next. He only knew that he had to make up his mind very quickly.
Under more relaxed circumstances, Damon might have been able to take advantage of Rajuder Singh's obvious distress. He felt that if he were to demand answers to his questions under the threat of further violence, he would probably get them. The thin man's eyes were flickering wildly from side to side, as if he expected to be shot at any moment-but there was no time for questions. Damon had to make his move, and there were only two ways to go: inside or outside.
As he moved toward the double door that would let him out into the tangled forest, the window at which he had been standing mere moments before imploded with a deafening roar. One of the tiny helicopters had shot it out. While Damon and Singh were still ducking away from the blast, arms raised against flying shards, two objects flew through the broken window. As they bounced across the carpet they began pumping out smoke.
Thanks to his misspent youth, Damon was able to recognize the objects and the belching smoke. He knew that he hadn't time to get through both the doors that stood between him and fresh air-but the elevator door was still wide open, less than three meters away. Singh was already headed for it, without even bothering to come to his feet.
Damon couldn't beat the dark-skinned man to the open door but he managed a tie. He couldn't pull the other man back but he hauled him to his feet so that he could reach out a slender finger and punch the button that would close the door behind them.
They had beaten the smoke, although a little of its stench lingered in the trapped air as the elevator began its descent.
Damon still had hold of Singh, and he shoved him up against the back wall of the elevator before pressing the barrel of the darter to his neck. "Don't ever threaten me again, Mr. Singh," he growled theatrically. "I really don't like it."
"I'm s-sorry s-sorry," the slender man gasped, desperate to spit the words out. "I only wanted. . . ."
"I know know what you wanted," Damon said, releasing his hold and lifting his hand reflexively to his face, as if to shield his nose and mouth from the few smoke particles that had accompanied them into the elevator. "You'd already what you wanted," Damon said, releasing his hold and lifting his hand reflexively to his face, as if to shield his nose and mouth from the few smoke particles that had accompanied them into the elevator. "You'd already told told me what you wanted." me what you wanted."
Singh breathed a deep sigh of relief as he realized that no further violence would be done to him, and that he had achieved his object in spite of all the difficulties. Damon didn't want him relaxing too much, so he made a show of pointing the gun at him.
"You're not out of the woods yet," he said grimly. "If there's anything I don't like waiting for us down below, you could still end up with a belly full of needles."
"It's all right," the thin man said quickly. "There's nothing down below but a safe place to hide. I haven't lied to you, Mr. Hart! I just had to get you down below, before you were hurt."
Now that there was time to make the play, Damon pointed the gun at his companion's face and tried to make his own expression as fearsome as he could. "Who are you really really working for?" he demanded. working for?" he demanded.
"Karol Kachellek," the other said plaintively, with tiny tears at the corners of his frightened eyes. "It's all true! I swear it. You'll see in a minute! You'll . . ."
The agitated stream of words died with the elevator light. The descent stopped with an abrupt lurch.
"Oh shit!" Damon murmured reflexively. This was a development he had not expected. He had assumed-as Singh clearly had-that once the elevator doors had closed they were safe from all pursuit.
"It's impossible," Singh croaked, although it clearly wasn't.