The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

“How do you like that, John!” he yelled. “Not only you but your boat is stolen! It’s only just!”

Now he pushed the starboard stick forward, and the great boat turned down-River. He steered it to the middle of the stream and set the automatic pilot on. Its sonars estimating the depth and the distance from both banks, it would now hold a course exactly in the middle unless it was on a collision course with a large object. Then it would turn to avoid it.

The man who had jumped onto the boat ran across the deck and disappeared from view. A half-minute later, he came up the ladder to the next deck. Evidently he was headed from the pilothouse.

At that moment, the rain ceased.

Cyrano leaned out of the door and emptied his pistol at the man as he ran across the deck. The man dived beneath an overhang, then stuck his head out and shot back at Cyrano. The only bullet that came near smashed itself halfway up the ladder.

Cyrano looked out the aft screen. The helicopter was still sitting on the flight deck. John and his three captors were now inside it. Four men were running across the deck toward the texas. He lowered the screen and leaned out, gesturing to them that it was he who had moved the boat. They stopped and waved at him, grinning, and then turned and ran to the copter.

At the far end of the deck some men were still shooting at the copter from a hatch. But their large-caliber plastic bullets were going against the wind, and most of them were falling on the deck or being blown over the deck. Cyrano could not determine how many were firing, but it seemed to him that there could not be more than three or four.

Of course, there might be others in the boiler deck fighting with the demolition men.

And then the boat shook and a great cloud of smoke rose from the deck near the port wheelhousing.

The blast was followed by another almost immediately. This one was from the starboard side, a much more powerful explosion than the other. Pieces of flight deck soared up through the smoke, falling on the deck, some being propelled near the helicopter. The clouds were quickly dissipated, however, revealing a great hole just beside the starboard wheel.

The lights went off, then burned again as the emergency system took over. The motors having stopped, the boat began to turn slowly, its nose moving toward the right bank. It would be drifting now, though it might be many kilometers before it rammed the bank.

Sturtevant was back out of the chopper and waving at Cyrano to hurry.

Four men appeared on the starboard side of the flight deck. Two came up from the ladder on the port.

Cyrano cursed. Were these the only survivors of the explosives crews?

Now little clouds of smoke rose from the hatch where the defen­ders had been firing at the chopper. One of his men dropped. The others gave protective fire while two of them picked up the fallen man and began to carry him between them toward the copter. One of them fell and could not get back up. He was picked up by two men. The other wounded man was hoisted up onto the shoulders of a comrade, and that one carried him though he staggered under the burden.

Cyrano ran back to the other side of the wheelhouse. That damnable fellow who had gotten aboard appeared for a moment, running across the deck just below. He was not carrying his pistol, which meant that he must have discarded it after emptying it. He carried an epee in his right hand.

His eye caught the movement near the foot of the ladder leading from the wheelhouse to the deck below. One of the men whom he had thought dead was living. And he was motioning for help. He must have seen the face of his chief at the screen.

Cyrano did not hesitate. The orders were to leave the dead behind, but nothing had been said about abandoning the wounded. In any case, he would have disregarded such a command. There seemed to be no immediate grave danger to the chopper. The few defenders could not cross the flight deck without exposing them­selves to the fire of those in the chopper. Of course, they could take another route, come up a ladder near the machine. But he, Cyrano, could get this poor wounded fellow to the copter before John’s men got there.