“Your little unofficial forays have been noted and will count against you. You have
repeatedly been told that we act for money only, not vengeance. We must not allow
ourselves to get personally involved in our calling. Any emotion, even vengeance, will lead
eventually to a weakening of will and infirmity of purpose. We must keep our minds and
souls pure if we are to succeed.
“Back to business. I can’t make final assignments for the week until I hear how Group
Four has done, but assuming they have maintained their average I think I can tentatively
shift them over to pick up the area being vacated by One. Group One then will operate
near Twosay, around the Lucky Streak Casino. Two and Three will stay as they are for
now. . . .
Jules heard footsteps coming down the ramp behind him. This would probably be the
member of Group Four who was late-and if so, Jules’ position would be exposed. He
looked quickly around for a spot that could not be seen from either the back or the front
and, the instant he spotted it, he dove in that direction.
But his motion was far too late. The tardy murderer was at the point on the ramp where
he could just see into the fifth level, and Jules’ rapid movement attracted his attention.
For a second he froze, then realized that his mates had not known they were being spied
upon. “Hey, there’s somebody else in here!” he called out.
The other Chandakhari jumped to attention at his cry. They were paranoid about
outsiders anyway, and this alarm set off their worst fears. Several of the men had been
wearing small jeweled daggers at their belts, and their hands went automatically to their
waists to remove the weapons. All of them looked around to see if they could spot the
intruder, but Jules’ chosen spot did provide him with a maximum amount of coverage.
The newcomer, who saw where Jules had gone, noted the confusion of his fellows.
“Down there!” he pointed. “Behind those boxes!.
All stealth was useless now, Jules knew. He was up against better than thirty men who
knew precisely where he was. Speed, strength and agility were the tools he would have
to use if he wanted to survive beyond the next few minutes. Bracing his back against a
row of heavy crates, he lifted his legs and kicked out at the series of boxes stacked in
front of him. Two of the stacks teetered ominously for a moment; then, as he gave them
a second kick, they toppled over onto the crowd of men that had started after him.
The effects of Vesa’s gravity made the spectacle almost ludicrous, as the boxes fell in
slow motion towards their targets and the men strained to get out of the path of the
falling objects. Finally, after what seemed like ages, the boxes hit the floor and
shattered, scattering their contents-small metal machine parts-all over the floor and
making the footing treacherous.
But Jules had not stayed put to watch the results of his action. Survival depended on
movement, and Jules was a veritable blur. The low gravity both hampered and helped;
hampered because it took so long for objects to reach ground once they were in the air,
and helped because his reflexes, attuned to gravitational pulls twelve times as strong,
were like lightning compared to those of his adversaries. In fact, he had to be constantly
adjusting his strengths downward, or be would have ended up overshooting each goal.
A knife flew by his head, but not too close. So slowly was it going that he could have
snatched it out of midair and thrown it back at its owner had he desired. Instead, he let it
continue along its flight path and bury itself two centimeters deep into a wood crate. He
was not too worried about the knives these murderers were carrying; he had given them
a good scan and realized that they were not properly balanced for throwing. Jules’
cousin, lean d’Alembert, was an expert knife thrower, and Jules knew most of the
fundamentals of that art just from observing a professional in action. The blades in
evidence here were all intended for stabbing; if Jules let any of these men get that close
to him the game would be up anyhow-and he knew it.
Jules quickly ducked down a cross row of crates, hoping to win access to the ramp and
freedom. His way was blocked, though, by half a dozen of the crooks advancing on him
with murder in their eyes. Gauging the distances, Jules decided against trying to leap
over their heads; a strategic retreat would be a better tactic right here. With a quick turn,
he fled back in the direction from which he’d come.
Two thugs leaped at him from atop a packing crate on his right. One of them gripped
Jules’ wrist while the other tried to get hold of the SOTS agent’s waist. With the sheer
force of his strength, Jules whipped his right hand around, pulling the attached attacker
with it and banging the man’s head solidly against a steel container. With a dull groan that
was barely audible over the clang of the collision, the man released his grip on Jules’
hand and fell unconscious to the floor.
With an athlete’s disdain for wasted motion, Jules continued with the follow-through on
his toss. His body spun around counterclockwise, and the crook who bad been grasping
for his waist slipped away and started falling to the floor. Jules did not allow that fall to
continue unassisted, though; as he spun, he jerked his left foot backwards and clipped
the murderer under the chin with his heel. The man was out cold before touching ground.
Leaping nimbly over his two fallen foes, Jules continued along his chosen path, even
though each step took him that much further away from the ramp. Over to his left, a
group of four men were cutting diagonally across the floor in an attempt to intercept his
path. Running at top speed, Jules deliberately rammed his body into another stack of
boxes, which fell slowly but hard into the middle of that group. The men had all been
running too fast to be able to stop and dodge. Most of them were able to lift up their
arms to fend off the falling boxes, but the sharp edge of one container caught one of the
Chandakhari squarely across the top of his head, cutting open a large gash. The man fell
to the floor under the weight of the box, blood oozing slowly from the cut.
His intentional collision with the stack of boxes had also affected Jules’ balance. He
staggered a bit from the impact and was just about to recover when his foot slipped on
one of the metal pieces from the first stack of boxes he’d knocked over. Trying
desperately to recover his balance, he stumbled into another stack of boxes and got the
wind knocked out of his lungs. He had to stand still for a second to recover from the
blow.
As he stood there for a moment, three more of the thugs came charging at him. He was
able to sidestep one completely, and the man went running right past him into the same
stack of crates Jules had just hit. The second man received a karate chop down on the
back of his neck, and it snapped his spine; Jules was fighting for his life, now, and had no
time to pull his punches. When be hit, it was with the full power of an angry DesPlainian.
The third man just happened to tackle Jules’ bad left leg, sending a stab of pain through
the agent’s body. The two men fell hard to the floor, but Jules quickly recovered from the
initial shock of the encounter. Bringing up his right knee, he clipped his assailant under
the chin and the man fell backwards. Jules rolled over and got quickly to his feet again,
ready for more action.
Although he had significantly reduced his opposition, he was still vastly outnumbered.
Now that the initial surprise of his presence was wearing off, these Chandakhari were
beginning to react as fighting units once more. Jules had had one taste already of how
efficient they could be; he bad no desire for further demonstrations. They were traveling
in packs now, circling in slowly and hoping to get the chance to use their special
techniques on him. He bad to keep away from them as much as possible, for each
second they slowed him down gave the mob that much more time to close in. He would
never be able to escape from twenty determined stranglers if they all got their hands on
him at once.
The killers were coming toward him from three sides now-from the direction of the ramp
and the direction exactly opposite it, and from the front where the group had been