Murray was bewildered. “It’s telling people to get under cover. I don’t—Jesus Christ!”
Hunt looked back. Silhouetted against the pale green outside, an immense shape consisting of a distorted cruciform fastened to a huge, streamlined tower that shrank away into the sky under the acute foreshortening of the perspective was coming down through the hole in the canopy. A roar of rushing air filled their ears, and minor debris scattered down and bounced off the face of the building above as the canopy above continued to buckle and tear.
“Goddamn spaceship!” Murray yelled hoarsely. “Spaceship coming down through the fuckin’ roof”
“That’s the Shapieron!” Gina shouted dazedly. “Vic, it’s the Gany— means!”
The starship came down through the circling police fliers like a battleship scattering minnows filling the volume above the city s rooftops.
“My God!” Danchekker exclaimed, staring up as the cathedral-like space between the four curving, swept fins enlarged second by second right above their heads. The retractable rearmost section of the main body which contained the entry locks was already sliding downward.
A bullhorn voice rang out, not as loud as before, and in English this time That s them luckier than we hoped Okay Vic we see you Get everyone over. I’m opening a door.” Never had Hunt been more glad to hear the voice of a computer.
Murray yelled something at Fendro, who came out of his funk and pressed a button inside a coverplate by the entrance. The doors
closed, cutting off the police who had started moving forward across 4 the hall inside. Hunt was already urging the others back across the landing platform.
The Shapieron could not maneuver close enough to the building to
lower its rear section onto the platform, but was hanging overhead with the opened entrance just past the edge and a short distance below. Gina came to the rail and looked down into what appeared to be a bottomless void between the stern section of the ship, hanging in space, and the lower part of the tower, which was overhung, back beneath the platform. Inside the opened lock, Ganymean figures were gesturing frantically.
“It’s okay,” ZORAC’s voice encouraged. “You’re in a shaped field. I’ll steer you in.”
Hunt urged her up onto the guardrail. Consciously she wanted to do it, but some deep-rooted, primeval survival instinct held her back. She shook her head weakly. “I’m not sure I can.”
Nixie climbed nimbly up on the far side of her, paused for a split second, and then launched herself forward. All the experiences and instincts of a lifetime’s conditioning told Gina that Nixie shouldn’t make it; but unseen forces guided her, and she landed lightly inside the Shapieron.
Gina swallowed and glanced at Hunt.
He nodded. “Go on!”
Forcing all other thoughts from her mind, she pitched off the rail—oblivious to the shove in her back that sent her moving.
Danchekker climbed up shakily. “If we ever manage to return after this escapade, I’ll greet Ms. Mulling with flowers,” he muttered to Hunt, and jumped.
As Keshen moved to follow, Fendro looked back and shouted in dismay. “We’ll never make it!”
Hunt turned his head. The door from the building was open again, and police were rushing out onto the platform. “Go!” he yelled, and pushed Keshen off. But Fendro was right: there were still three of them to go, and some of the police were already leveling weapons.
And then one of the Shapieron’s probes came swooping downward with a roaring, swishing sound, flattening out to race over the platform at head height, straight at the doorway like a fighter on a strafing run. The police scattered amid shouts of terror, some throwing themselves out of the way, others retreating back into the doorway. At the last moment the probe broke and peeled upward, grazing within a few feet of the face of the tower, and began turning for another run.
Murray and Fendro had clambered up onto the rail, and both disappeared together as Hunt looked back. Hunt glanced behind one last time, then hurled himself over after them. For an instant he
seemed to hang in midair above the abyss, and then without his really registering what had taken place, hands were steadying him inside the Shapieron.