A half-hour later and more worried every minute Thorby located an entrance which the police did not seem to know. He scanned it for several minutes, then darted from behind a screen of weeds and was down it. Once inside he got quickly into total darkness, then moved cautiously, listening. The police were supposed to have spectacles which let them see in the dark. Thorby wasn’t sure this was true as he had always found darkness helpful in evading them. But he took no chances.
There were indeed police down below; he heard two of them and saw them by hand torches they carried — if snoopies could see in the dark these two did not seem equipped for it. They were obviously searching, stun guns drawn. But they were in strange territory whereas Thorby was playing his home field. A specialized speleologist, he knew these corridors the way his tongue knew his teeth; he had been finding his way through them in utter blackness twice a day for years.
At the moment they had him trapped; he kept just far enough ahead to avoid their torches, skirted a hole that reached down into the next level, went beyond it, ducked into a doorway and waited.
They reached the hole, eyed the narrow ledge Thorby had taken so casually in the dark, and one of them said, “We need a ladder.”
“Oh, we’ll find stairs or a chute.” They turned back. Thorby waited, then went back and down the hole.
A few minutes later he was close to his home doorway. He looked and listened and sniffed and waited until he was certain that no one was close, then crept to the door and reached for the thumbhole in the lock. Even as he reached he knew that something was wrong.
The door was gone; there was just a hole.
He froze, straining every sense. There was an odor of strangers but it wasn’t fresh and there was no sound of breathing. The only sound was a faint drip-drip in the kitchen.
Thorby decided that he just had to see. He looked behind him, saw no glimmer, reached inside for the light switch and turned it to “dim.”
Nothing happened. He tried the switch in all positions, still no light. He went inside, avoided something cluttering Baslim’s neat living room, on into the kitchen, and reached for candles. They were not where they belonged but his hand encountered one nearby; he found the match safe and lit the candle.
Ruin and wreckage!
Most of the damage seemed the sort that results from a search which takes no account of cost, aiming solely at speed and thoroughness. Every cupboard, every shelf had been spilled, food dumped on the floor. In the large room the mattresses had been ripped open, stuffing spilled out. But some of it looked like vandalism, unnecessary, pointless.
Thorby looked around with tears welling up and his chin quivering. But when he found, near the door. Pop’s false leg, lying dead on the floor with its mechanical perfection smashed as if trampled by boots, he broke into sobs and had to put the candle down to keep from dropping it. He picked up the shattered leg, held it like a doll, sank to the floor and cradled it, rocking back and forth and moaning.
Chapter 5
Thorby spent the next several hours in the black corridors outside their ruined home, near the first branching, where he would hear Pop if he came back but where Thorby would have a chance to duck if police showed up.
He caught himself dozing, woke with a start, and decided that he had to find out what time it was; it seemed as if he had been keeping vigil a week. He went back into their home, found a candle and lit it. But their only clock, a household “Eternal,” was smashed. No doubt the radioactive capsule was still reckoning eternity but the works were mute. Thorby looked at it and forced himself to think in practical terms.
If Pop were free, he would come back. But the police had taken Pop away. Would they simply question him and turn him loose?
No, they would not. So far as Thorby knew, Pop had never done anything to harm the Sargon — but he had known for a long time that Pop was not simply a harmless old beggar. Thorby did not know why Pop had done the many things which did not fit the idea of “harmless old beggar” but it was clear that the police knew or suspected. About once a year the police had “cleaned out” the ruins by dropping a few retch-gas bombs down the more conspicuous holes; it simply meant having to sleep somewhere else for a couple of nights. But this was a raid in force. They had intended to arrest Pop and they had been searching for something.