The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

He waited. Perhaps John would fall for this trick, thinking it was the voice of one of his men, and open the door.

An explosion sounded, followed by a bullet which would have hit him if he had been standing in front of the door. It was not one of your plastic missiles which would shatter against the oak. It was of the precious lead and made a respectably sized hole.

He gestured at one of his men, and the fellow removed a package of plastic explosive from a small box. Cyrano stood to one side while his colleague, Sheehan, crouching low, pressed the explosive around the lock and over the hinges.

Crafty John sent another bullet crashing through the wood. This was low, catching Sheehan in the skull just above his eyes. He fell back and lay staring, mouth open.

“Quel dommage!”

Sheehan had been a fine fellow. It was a pity that his funeral sermon was confined to, “What a pity!”

On the other hand, he should not have been so careless as to put himself in the line of fire.

Cogs well ran up to the corpse, retrieved the electrical line and battery, and walked swiftly backward, unreeling the line. Fortu­nately, Sheehan had inserted the fuse in the plastic, thus saving a few seconds. Everything was a matter of utmost speed, and seconds might mean the difference between success or failure.

Cyrano retreated to the corner, flattened himself against the bulkhead, turned his head away, and stuck his fingers in his ears, opening his mouth at the same time.

Though he could not see him, he could imagine Cogswell secur­ing one end of the wire to a terminal of the battery, then touching the other with the other end of the wire.

The explosion rocked and half-deafened him. Clouds of acrid smoke filled the corridor. Coughing, he felt his way along the bulkhead, touched the now open doorframe, dimly saw the blasted door lying over Sheehan’s body, and then he was inside the stateroom.

He had dived in and then rolled side wise, a maneuver made clumsy by the sheathed sword attached to his belt.

Now he was up against something that felt like the legs of a bed. Almost directly above him, a woman was screaming. But where was John Lackland?

A pistol boomed. Cyrano saw its flash through the smoke and was up and flying across the corner of the bed. His arms enfolded a thick and naked waist, and the tackled man went over sideways. There was a grunt, a flailing arm that struck Cyrano’s head without hurting him, and then the man went limp.

Cyrano had his dagger out and against the man’s throat. “Make one move, and I’ll cut your throat!”

There was no response. Was the fellow frozen with terror or was he faking?

Cyrano’s other hand felt along the shoulder, up the neck, and along the head. The man did not move. Ah! A stickiness! John, if it was John, had struck his head and was indeed unconscious.

Cyrano got up, groped along the bulkhead, and found the switch. The light showed a large room, luxuriously decorated and furnished by Riverworld standards. The smoke was clearing away now, revealing a very pretty and quite naked woman on her knees in the center of the bed. She had stopped screaming and was staring at him with huge blue eyes.

“Get under the covers and stay there, and you won’t be hurt, mademoiselle. De Bergerac does not make war upon women. Unless they try to kill him.”

The man sprawled on the deck was short and muscularly built and tawny haired. His blue eyes were open, and he was mumbling something. In a few seconds, he would be recovering his wits.

Cyrano turned and saw why John had fired his pistol. Hoijes lay on his back on the floor, his chest torn open.

“Mordioux!”

He must have run in immediately after he had seen his colleague dive through the doorway. And John, seeing him outlined against the light from the corridor, had shot him. Doubtless, he, Cyrano, had not been fired at because the smoke was still too thick for him to be seen.