He spent only a few minutes more searching for her. His sense of duty he quieted by telling himself that she stood no chance of getting away here in a mountain forest anyhow, infected, as he knew her to be, with a respiratory ailment. She would have to give up and turn herself in.
Monroe-Alpha did not return to the cabin. He had left nothing there, and he assumed that the little glow-heater which had kept them warm through the night was equipped with automatic cut-off. If not, no matter-it did not occur to him to weigh his personal convenience against the waste involved. He went at once to the parking lot underground where he found his runabout, climbed in, and started its impeller. There was an immediate automatic response from the Park’s traffic signal system, evidenced by glowing letters on the runabout’s annunciator: NO CRUISING OVER GIANT FOREST-ANGLE THREE THOUSAND AND SCRAMBLE. He obeyed without realizing it; his mind was not on the conning of the little car.
His mind was not on anything in particular. The lethargy, the bitter melancholy, which had enervated him before the beginning of the Readjustment, descended on him with renewed force. For what good? To what purpose was this blind senseless struggle to stay alive, to breed, to fight? He drove the little capsule as fast as its impeller would shove it straight for the face of Mount Whitney, with an unreasoned half-conscious intention of making an ending there and then.
But the runabout was not built to crash. With the increase in speed the co-pilot extended the range of its feelers; the klystrons informed the tracker; solenoids chattered briefly and the car angled over the peak.
CHAPTER NINE
“When we die, do we die all over?”
AS HE turned his back on the lifting runabout into which he had shanghaied Monroe-Alpha, Hamilton dismissed his friend from his mind-much to do and damned little time. Hurry!
He was surprised and not pleased to find that the door giving down into the building from the roof responded at once to the code used by the Clinic staff-a combination Mordan had given him. Nor were there guards beyond that door. Why, the place might as well be wide open! He burst into Mordan’s office with the fact on his mind. “This place is as unprotected as a church,” he snapped. “What’s the idea?” He looked around. In addition to Mordan the room contained Bainbridge Martha, his chief of technical staff, and Longcourt Phyllis. His surprise at her presence was reinforced by annoyance at seeing she was armed.
“Good evening, Felix,” Mordan answered mildly. “Why should it be protected?”
“Good grief! Aren’t you going to resist attack?”
“But,” Mordan pointed out, “there is no reason to expect attack. This is not a strategic point. No doubt they plan to take the Clinic over later but the fighting will be elsewhere.”
“That’s what you think. I know better.”
“Yes?”
“I was assigned to come here to kill you. A section follows me to seize the Clinic.”
Mordan made no comment. He sat still, face impassive. Hamilton started to speak; Mordan checked him with a raised hand and said, “There are only three other men in the building. None of them are gunmen. How much time have we?”
“Ten minutes-or less.”
“I’ll inform the central peace station. They may be able to divert a few reserve monitors. Martha, send the staff home.” He turned to the telephone.
The lighting flickered sharply, was replaced at once by a lesser illumination. The emergency lighting had cut in. No one needed to be told that Power Central was out. Mordan continued to the phone-it was dead.
“The building cannot be held by two guns,” he observed, as if thinking aloud. “Nor is it necessary. But there is just one point necessary to protect-the plasm bank. Our friends are not completely stupid. But it is still bad strategy. They forget that a trapped animal will gnaw off a leg. Come, Felix. We must attempt it.”
The significance of the attack on the Clinic raced through Hamilton’s mind. The plasm bank. The one here in the Capital’s clinic was repository of the plasm of genius for the past two centuries. If the rebels captured it, even if they did not win, they would have a unique and irreplaceable hostage. At the worst they could exchange it for their lives.