“I knew her by reputation, of course,” Swoboda continued, “as she knew me. As an anthropologist, she saw even more clearly than I the horror, the irreversible horror, into which the world was slipping; and she saw the hope that my power source could provide.
“Black May had already recruited several biologists, planning her ‘base’. It wasn’t hard for her, you know. The more intelligent someone is, the more clear the need for a, a bolthole, becomes. And word of mouth moves swiftly in the academic community. Leah—she died only last month—she was 83 and it wasn’t at all for herself that the concern lay—she convinced me to try to work with Black May, now that Underground had a single, intelligent leader. And Leah was right. It just seems that that wasn’t enough.”
There was an interruption from the doorway. Horn scooped up his dice and stood, trying to embrace the lithe woman who carried three meal packets and a canteen. “Rickie, hey, how about a trick, hey?” the guard rasped. “Look, I can pay—”
The woman dropped her burden without ceremony and elbowed Horn in the stomach. “Think I haven’t heard, creep? Keep the hell away from me!”
“Look, just a feel, then, Rickie,” Horn begged, crouching in desire and extending his hands. Rickie reached behind her back, then extended her right fist wrapped in barbed-wire claws.
“I’ll feel the heart right outa your chest, I will!”
Horn’s mouth pursed and his hands dropped to his knife. Booth personnel were beginning to view the disruption blackly, and a few customers seemed to be drifting toward other parts of the tunnels. The woman swiped at Horn’s eyes. “You try that,” she hissed, “and I’ll feed it to your asshole. And if I don’t, cutie, what d’ye suppose Bill and May’ll do?”
Horn cursed and turned and slammed his fist into the open door. It boomed thunderously. The woman walked back the way she had come. Horn saw the food containers and kicked all three of them violently into the closet. One of them sailed through the opening to the elevator shaft. Lacey ducked. The ruptured plastic spewed juices. Its integral heating element stank with only the empty container to absorb its energy.
Lacey smiled. It was as well for Swoboda’s peace of mind that the dim light kept him from seeing the hunter’s face clearly. Lacey tugged his companion silently toward the eyebolt so that the old man’s hand rested on the metal. All the slack in the chain was on Lacey’s side of the bolt.
“Hey Horn,” he called to the guard, sitting again in the doorway. “There’s rats in here.”
“Hope they chew your eyes out!”
“No, I mean they’re screwing in the corner,” Lacey said. “Shine your light so’s we can get a better look at ’em, will you?”
Horn bounced to his feet and raised the flashlight Bill Allen had left with him. Then he paused and shifted the light to his left hand. He drew his knife and gestured with it. “Get smart and I’ll spread you all over the room,” he said.
Lacey nodded and stepped back. Out of the bright disk of the flashlight, he thumbed a chunk of potato into the pile of trash in the far corner. The litter rustled.
Horn stepped through the opening to the shaft. His knife pointed up at Lacey’s throat, but his eyes were on the quivering circle of light. “Where—” he began.
Lacey flipped a loop of chain over the guard’s head and jerked him backward. Swoboda squealed. Horn could not shout with the chain crushing his throat, but he slashed out with his knife. Lacey threw himself aside, tugging frenziedly at the chain. His body knocked the physicist down.
Horn tried to rise. He cut wildly to the side; his wrist struck the eyebolt. A cry wheezed past the chain and the knife sailed loose in the darkness. Horn’s hand twisted toward the blackjack in his hip pocket, but his fingers would not close.
Lacey moved nearer. The manacle on his right wrist gave him an unbreakable grip on the chain. He planted both feet on the other side of the loop, pinning it to the floor. Then he pulled upward with his whole body. Horn thrashed furiously. Blood flecked his chin and the hairs on his chest. The motions became instinctual, like those of a fish on the sand. He gave a final, backing-arching convulsion and lay still.