The expected explosion did not come immediately. At that moment, a car screeched around the corner a block away. It straightened up, swaying under the street lights, and shot toward the driveway of the house they had just left. Kickaha saw the silhouettes of six heads inside it; one might have been Urthona’s. Then he was running again. They rounded the corner from which the speeding automobile had come, and still nothing happened. Anana cried out, but he continued to drag her on. They ran a complete block and were crossing the street to go around another corner, when a black and white patrol car came by. It was cruising slowly and so the occupants had plenty of time to see the two runners. Anybody walking on the streets after dark in this area was suspect. A running person was certain to be taken to the station for questioning. Two running persons carrying a large musical instrument case and something that looked like a peculiar shotgun were guaranteed capture by the police. If they could be caught, of course.
Kickaha cursed and darted toward the house nearest them. Its lights were on, and the front door was open, though the screen door was probably locked. Behind them, brakes squealed as the patrol car slid to a stop. A loud voice told them to stop.
They continued to run. They ran onto the porch and Kickaha pulled on the screen door. He intended to go right through the house and out the back door, figuring that the police were not likely to shoot at them if innocents were in the way.
Kickaha cursed, gave the handle of the screen door a yank that tore the lock out. He plunged through with Anana right behind him. They shot through a vestibule and into a large room with a chandelier and a broad winding staircase to the second story. There were about ten men and women standing or sitting, all dressed semiformally. The women screamed; the men yelled. The two intruders ran through them, unhindered while the shouts of the policemen rose above the noise of the occupants.
The next moment, all human noise was shattered. The blast smashed in the glass of the windows and shook the house as if a tidal wave had struck it. All were hurled to the floor by the impact.
Kickaha had been expecting this, and Anana had expected something enormously powerful by his behavior. They jumped up before anybody else could regain their wits and were going out the back door in a few seconds. Kickaha doubled back, running toward the front along the side of the house. There was much broken glass on the walk, flicked there by the explosion from some nearby house. A few bushes and some lawn furniture also lay twisted on the sidewalk.
The patrol car, its motor running, and lights on, was still by the curb. Anana threw the instrument case into the rear seat and got in and Kickaha laid the beamer on the floor and climbed in. They strapped themselves in, and he turned the car around and took off. In the course of the next four blocks, he found the button switches to set the siren off and the light whirling and flashing.
“We’ll get to Urthona’s house, near it, anyway,” he yelled, “and then we’ll abandon this. I think Red Orc’ll be there now to find out if Urthona was among those who entered the house when that mine went off!”
Anana shook her head and pointed at her ears. She was still deaf.
It was no wonder. He could just faintly hear the siren which must be screaming in their ears.
A few minutes later, as they shot through a red light, they passed a patrol car, lights flashing, going the other way. Anana ducked down so that she would not be seen, but evidently the car had received notice by radio that this car was stolen. It screamed as it slowed down and turned on the broad intersection and started after Kickaha and Anana. A sports car which had sped through the intersections, as if its driver intended to ignore the flashing red lights and sirens, turned away to avoid a collision, did not quite make it, scraped against the rear of the police car, and caromed off over the curbing, and up onto the sidewalk.