I turned back to see the Man lying there motionless. Maybe a trick, or maybe I actually had knocked him out when I knocked him down. The head’s protected with padding, but force is force, and he might have slammed into the ground hard enough to sustain a concussion. I feinted at him, a kick that missed his head by a hair, and he didn’t react.
Where the hell was the Tauran? No sign in any direction. I crouched to pick up the Man and heard, from the direction of the spaceport, a woman’s scream, muffled by the snow, then two shots.
I ran toward it, but was a moment too late. The floater was rising fast, slanting away from the smashed front entrance; Max was standing with the pistol aimed at the machine, but with no useful target. I jumped with all my amplified might, and went up maybe twenty meters, almost high enough to touch it, and then fell back down with a crash that rattled my teeth and made my ankles sting.
“The thing got Jynn,” Max said. “It dove through the glass and snatched her and Roberta.” Roberta was sitting in the snow, cradling her elbow.
“You all right?” They both flinched; I realized I’d inadvertently cranked up the sound. I chinned it down.
“Damn near yanked my arm off. But I’m okay.”
“Where is everybody?”
“We split up,” Max said. “Marygay went on with the bus, out to the shuttle. We stayed here with the gun, try to distract them.”
“Well, you did that.” I hesitated. “Nothing we can do here now. Let’s go catch the bus.” I scooped up Roberta, then Max, and stepped out on the field, carrying them like bundles. The bus wasn’t visible, but it had blown a clear path through the snow. We caught up with them in less than a minute, and my passengers seemed happy to switch conveyances.
No sign of the floater with the Tauran and Jynn. I could have heard it if it were within a couple of klicks.
The bus was crowded. There were two humans I didn’t recognize, and four Men, evidently our welcoming committee.
“They’ve got Jynn,” I told Marygay. “The Taurans took her off on their floater.”
She shook her head. “Jynn?” They were pretty close. “There’s nothing we can do. She’s just gone.”
“They won’t hurt her,” Max said. “Let’s move!”
“Right,” Marygay said, but she didn’t move.
“I’ll meet you at the shuttle,” I said. I was too big and heavy for the bus.
“Meet you there,” she said quietly, and pushed the button that closed the door. The bus lurched forward and I jogged past it toward the shuttle launch tube.
I tapped the tube elevator door button and it opened, looking warm in its yellow light. Then I popped the suit and gingerly stepped out into the snow. The front pocket resisted my efforts, but after one broken thumbnail I got my clothes free and quickly pulled them on in the shelter of the elevator car.
The bus eased down by my empty open suit and I silently urged them to hurry, hurry–how long would it take for someone to just turn off the power and leave us with a useless elevator? The shuttle might be autonomous, but we did have to get inside it to use it.
Marygay spent a few precious seconds telling the four Men and two humans to get out of here and underground, which they probably knew. The launch tube would absorb the gamma rays for the first seconds of launch, but after that it would not be wise to be nearby. Roberta had her thumb on the up button and mashed it as soon as Marygay sprinted inside.
Nobody pulled the plug. The elevator surged up and clicked into place alongside the shuttle airlock, which irised open.
Getting seated was not simple, gravity against us. We climbed down a ladder net and filled the compartment from the bottom up. The sheriff’s hands and feet were freed for the job and he didn’t resist being taped into place again, once he was belted in.
I settled into the pilot’s seat and started snapping the sequence of switches that would get us out of here. It wasn’t complicated, since there were only four standard orbit choices. I chose “Rendezvous with Time Warp,” and had to more or less trust the ship.