in alarm at the small movement of the other man’s hand to his coat, the sudden
flash of steel. Mills failed to see it… Angelo cried aloud as the man slashed
Mills, scrambled back as the man flung himself at him. Hale: he recognized the
face suddenly.
Mills shrieked, bleeding, sinking against the open doorway; there were screams
from the outer office; the blow struck, a numbing shock. Angelo reached for the
driving hand and met the weapon protruding from his chest, stared disbelievingly
at Jon… at hate. There were others in the doorway.
Shock welled up in him, with the blood.
iv
Q
“Vassily,” the voice said over com. “Vassily, do you hear me?”
Kressich, at his desk, sat paralyzed. It was Coledy, of those who sat about him,
hunched and waiting, who reached past him and punched the respond button. “I
hear,” Kressich said past the knot in his throat. He looked at Coledy. In his
ears was the buzz of voices out on the docks, people already frightened, already
threatening riot.
“Keep him safe,” Coledy said to James, who was over the five others who waited
outside. “Keep him very safe.”
And Coledy went. They had waited, had hovered about com, one of them always near
it, gathered here in the confusion. It was on them now. After a moment there was
a rise in the noise of the mob outside, a dull, bestial sound which shook the
walls.
Kressich bowed his face into his hands, stayed so for a long time, not wishing
to know.
“The doors,” he heard finally, a shout from outside. “The doors are open!”
v
Green nine
They ran, stumbling and breathless, jostling others in the corridor, a sea of
panicked people, red-dyed in alarm lights. A siren still went; there was a
queasiness of G as station systems struggled to keep themselves stable. “It’s
the docks,” Damon breathed, his vision blurring. A runner hit him and he fended
the body off, pushed his way, with Josh in his wake, where the ramp opened onto
nine. “Mazian’s peeled off.” It was all that made sense.
Shrieks broke out and there was a massive backflow in the crowd that brought all
the press to a stop. Of a sudden traffic began to go the other way, people
retreating from something. There were frantic screams, bodies jammed against
them.
“Damon!” Josh yelled from behind him. It was no good. They were pushed back, all
of them, against the crush of bodies behind. Shots streaked overhead, and the
whole jammed mass quivered and rang with screams. Damon got his arms in front of
him for leverage, to keep from being suffocated… ribs were compressed.
Then the rear of the press turned, running in panic down some route of escape;
and the crush became a battering flood. He tried to stand in it, having his own
direction. A hand caught his arm, and Josh caught up with him, staggered as the
mob shoved and stampeded and they tried to fight the current
More shots. A man went down; more than one—hit. The fire was going into the
crowd.
“Stop shooting!” Damon shouted, still with a wall of people in front of him, a
wall diminishing as if a scythe were hitting it. “Cease fire!”
Someone grabbed him from the back, pulled him as fire came through. He got the
edge of one and jerked in pain, scrambling for balance in the rout, running
now—it was Josh with him, pulling him along in their retreat. A man’s back
exploded an arm’s length ahead of them, and the man fell under the others.
“This way!” Josh yelled, jerked him left, down a side corridor where part of the
rout was going. He went, that direction as good as the other… saw a way to
double back through, redoubled his effort, to get to the docks, running through
the maze of secondary corridors back again to nine.
They made it as far as three intersections, frantic people scattering
everywhere, at every intersection of the corridors, staggering in the flux of G.
And then screams broke out in the halls ahead.
“Look out!” Josh yelled, catching at him. He gasped air and turned, ran where