The second man came up fast. Hamilton slugged him with the empty weapon and grappled, trying to get inside his range. The man almost fought free, dragging them both part way into the staircase, but Hamilton jerked back on his head, hard. There was a crunch of bone; he went limp.
Hamilton reported back to Mordan.
“Good. Where’s your gun?” Hamilton shrugged and spread his palms. “There ought to be two at the foot of the stairs,” he suggested.
“You wouldn’t last long enough to stoop over for them. You stay up here. Go back and get Martha’s.”
“Yes, sir.”
He crawled back, explained what he wanted, and told Martha to hide in the stacks. She protested. “Chief’s orders,” he lied. Then to Phyllis, “How are you doing, kid?”
“All right.”
“Keep your chin up and your head down.” He glanced at the meters on both guns. They had the same charge. He bolstered Monroe-Alpha’s gun, shot a quick look at the door Phyllis was covering, then grabbed her chin, turned her face around, and kissed her quickly.
“That’s for keeps,” he said, and turned away at once.
Mordan reported no activity. “But there will be,” he added. “We don’t dare waste shots on casual targets and they will soon realize it.”
It seemed an interminable wait. They grimly forbore accepting the targets they were offered. “I think,” said Mordan at last, “that we had better expend one charge on the next thing that appears. It might cause a worthwhile delay.”
“You don’t have any silly notion that we are going to get out of this now, do you? I’ve begun to suspect that the monitors don’t even know this point was attacked.”
“You may be right. But we’ll keep on.”
“Oh, of course.”
They had a target soon-plain enough to be sure that it was a man, and not a decoy. Mordan stung him. He fell in sight, but shots were scarce-he was allowed to crawl painfully back.
Hamilton looked up for a moment. “See here, Claude-it would be worthwhile, you know-to know what happens after the lights go out. Why hadn’t anyone tackled it seriously?”
“Religions do. Philosophies do.”
“That isn’t what I mean. It ought to be tackled the same as any other — ” He stopped. “Do you smell anything?”
Mordan sniffed. “I’m not sure. What does it smell like?”
“Sweetish. It — ” He felt suddenly dizzy, a strange sensation for him. He saw two of Mordan. “Gas. They’ve got us. So long, pal.” He tried to crawl to the passageway down which Phyllis was on duty, but he achieved only a couple of clumsy, crawling steps, fell on his face, and lay still.
CHAPTER TEN
” — the only game in town”
IT WAS pleasant to be dead. Pleasant and peaceful, not monotonous. But a little bit lonely. He missed those others — serene Mordan, the dauntless gallantry of Phyllis, Cliff and his frozen face. And there was that funny little man, pathetic little man who ran the Milky Way Bar-what had he named him? He could see his face, but what had he named him? Herbie, Herbert, something like that-names didn’t taste the same when words were gone. Why had he named him Herbert?
Never mind. The next time he would not choose to be a mathematician. Dull, tasteless stuff, mathematics-quite likely to give the game away before it was played out. No fun in the game if you knew the outcome. He had designed a game like that once, and called it Futility-no matter how you played, you had to win. No, that wasn’t himself, that was a player called Hamilton. Himself wasn’t Hamilton-not this game. He was a geneticist-that was a good one! — a game within a game. Change the rules as you go along. Move the players around. Play tricks on yourself.
“Don’t you peek and close your eyes, And I’ll give you something to make a s’prise!”
That was the essence of the game-surprise. You locked up your memory, and promised not to look, then played through the part you had picked with just the rules assigned to that player. Sometimes the surprises were pretty ghastly, though-he didn’t like having his fingers burned off.