Service of the Empire would have been able to concoct his phony prison record, get him
into the prison and help him bust out so convincingly. And if these crooks ever got even
the faintest suspicion that SOTE was on to them, they’d vanish into the night and the
Service would never be able to track them all down. Not to mention the fact that Jules
would be dead the instant after they came to that realization.
To forestall the man’s thinking the problem out to the inevitable conclusion, Jules said,
“Nah, it wasn’t any problem at all. Your people’d take a cross-eyed nangabat if it flew in
and asked for a job.
The man raised his arm to strike once more, then stopped. “No, I think there’s been
enough- of that for now,” he decided. “We’ll have to think of some other way to entertain
you. . . .
There was a knocking at the door to one side. “Get that,” the man called to some of the
other men in the room. Then, thinking better of it, he said, “No, I’ll get it. It’s probably
Garst.
As he walked away, the eyes of the others all went with him. All, that is, except for those
of one young man who silently detached himself from a group of his fellows and edged
between the vats to stand beside Jules. The SOTE agent recognized the lad as
Radapur, the Chandakhar he’d saved from Rask’s mad attack out on the spaceport field.
No one else in the room saw Radapur approach or stand beside him. The youth bad a
sharp knife clutched firmly in his hand. There was an expression on the lad’s face that
was impossible for Jules to fathom, so twisted was it with conflicting emotions. Is he
coming to kill the or free me? he wondered.
Radapur was behind him now and, with several quick slashes, cut the bonds that held
Jules in place. “The debt is paid,” the youth said tersely. “I can do no more.” And he
moved away again so quickly that Jules would hardly have believed he’d ever been there,
were it not for the slashed ropes behind him.
He had no chance to make any break now, however, as the door opened and closed
quickly and attention was turning back in his direction. The ropes were hanging more
slackly on him, and Jules hoped fervently that no one would notice until he had an
opportunity to make his move.
“Whew,” said the newcomer, “I’d forgotten the stench of this place. I’m glad I don’t have
to come down here much anymore. Where’s the spy?.
“Over this way.” The tail man led the newcomer over to where Jules was seated. It was
obvious from the deference in his attitude that the late arrival was a man of importance in
this organization-perhaps the big boss himself. Jules stared at the face, but the man was
no one he had met. There was a craftiness to that face, though, and an evil glint behind
the eyes.
As Jules was studying his face, the boss-Garst, he had been called-was studying Jules.
“DesPlainian, all right,” be mused aloud. “The skin’s dyed of course, now, but even so . .
. there’s more than a superficial resemblance to that girl.
Yvete! Had she already tangled with this man? If so, what had happened? Why was he
still free to walk around, and what had become of his sister? Those questions and a
thousand others flooded Jules’ mind. It was only with a great force of will that he put
them aside and concentrated on his position of the moment. He could worry about Yvette
sometime later, when he was less worried about himself.
Garst gave him no more clues. Instead, he turned to his lieutenant and asked, “All right,
Lessin, what have you learned from him so far?.
“Nothing yet. He’s only just come out of stun. I wanted to wait until you got here before
giving him the juice. You would know better what questions to ask him.” Garst nodded.
“Okay, get on with it.
Lessin reached into a leather pouch at his belt and pulled out a hyposprayer filled with a
clear fluid. The “juice,” as he had called it, could only be nitrobarb, which would knock its
victim into a coma for twenty minutes, after which he would have to answer any and all
questions put to him. For Jules, it would be the death knell; even if the drug itself did not
kill him, Garst and his men were certain to once they learned what he knew. His life was
on the line, and he’d have to make his move now.
As Lessin approached him with the sprayer, Jules suddenly lifted one leg and kicked the
strangler squarely amidship. The man let out a grunt of surprise and pain, and fell
backwards. The hyposprayer flew from his hand and landed across the room, shattering
on impact with the floor and spilling its lethal contents harmlessly on the concrete
surface.
Long before that happened, however, the rest of the room had exploded into action.
Garst, his reflexes faster than Jules would have given him credit for, backed away from
the DesPlainian the instant his foot lashed out at Lessin, and began reaching for the gun
be had tucked away in his jacket pocket. The rest of the gang, two dozen of them, were
all armed as well-they’d seen Jules in action before and had come prepared for anything.
Even Radapur was reaching for his gun. Apparently the young man felt that cutting the
bonds and giving Jules a chance to fight for his freedom was ample enough repayment;
from now on it would be no quarter asked or given. Jules accepted that as an unhappy
fact of life and planned accordingly.
He had been hoping to grab Garst and hold him in front as a hostage to ensure safe
passage out of here, but the man had jumped out of reach too quickly for him to
accomplish that. Besides, with a group like this there was always the possibility of one of
the lesser murderers taking it into his head to shoot the boss as well and take over for
himself. While in the long run that might lead to the group’s unity dissolving in internal
rivalries, in the short run it would do Jules no good whatsoever.
The SOTE agent sized up the situation quickly. Al! his opponents were armed; while
some of the weapons they had were stunners, most were equipped with bigger stuff
-blasters, and heavy-duty ones at that. This game was being played for keeps, and Jules
could afford no mistakes. One slip here and he was dead.
Getting quickly to his feet Jules bounded abruptly in the direction opposite to Garst. The
long high leap left him in a vulnerable position momentarily as it took several seconds for
Vesa’s light gravity to pull him back to the ground again; but his aerialist training came to
his assistance once more as he curled, himself into a small ball and spun through the air,
offering a minimal target surface for the killers to aim at. He felt the scorching heat as
several bolts passed by within half a meter of him, but fortunately these killers were used
to strangling their victims and were not as adept with guns as they might be.
Jules had gauged his leap to take him behind one of the nearby vats. He straightened out
as he approached ground level, noticing as he did so that there were no more bolts going
past his immediate vicinity. He was out of direct, straight-line range, and therefore
safe-for the moment.
“Watch those blasters in here!” Garst called out. “We can’t afford to damage anything, or
we might all be flooded out. Stunners only, unless you’ve got an absolutely clear shot.
Don’t move too quickly, don’t overcommit yourself. Remember, there’s only one way out
and we’re guarding it. He’s trapped in here and we outnumber him, so it’s only a matter
of time.
Garst is right, Jules grimaced. As long as he was weaponless and there were armed
men at the door his chances of escape were virtually nil. He could bounce around for
hours, gradually wearing himself out, while they could move at their leisure and hunt him
down. Getting possession of a weapon of his own would be a big help, but in the
meantime he would have to stay in motion and avoid letting the enemy get any clear
shots at him.
As he touched ground he jumped again, this time for the ladder that went up the side of
the vat next to him. Using the handrails he pulled himself up five rungs at a time until he
was almost to the top. The sounds of running footsteps told him that his pursuers were
coming around after him, closing in on the spot where he’d disappeared from their view.