“It’s big enough to crawl through!” he shouted.
“Nodon,” said Amarjagal, on her feet now. “He’s unconscious.”
“Carry him. Come on.”
Fuchs hauled himself up into the ventilator shaft. It was filled with smoke and utterly dark inside. Coughing, he reached down for Nodon’s still-unconscious body. This shaft can’t be too long, he thought. We’re up near the roof. There must be an outlet nearby.
Crawling, coughing, eyes streaming with burning tears, he dragged Nodon’s limp body through the shaft. Its metal walls felt hot to his fingers, but he slithered along, knowing that either he found his way out of the building or he would soon die.
The security chief was peering at his display screens, straining to see what was going on in the dim shadows of the upstairs hall. The only light came from the flickering flames. The intruders were moving around, he felt sure, but it was almost impossible to make out anything definite in the smoke. Even the infrared cameras were virtually useless now. Several of the window draperies were blazing; the flames overloaded the surveillance cameras’ light sensitive photocells. All he could see was overexposed flickers of flame and inky black shadows shambling around.
The fire’s contained to the upstairs hall, he saw, checking the other screens. Thank god for small miracles. I’ll probably have to resign after this. If Humphries doesn’t fire me outright.
Pacing the length of the big bedroom, Humphries muttered, “I don’t like this. I don’t like being cooped up in here.”
Victoria Ferrer suppressed an incipient smile. He’s really frightened, she thought. Normally, if we were locked in his bedroom together he’d peel this robe off me and pop me between the sheets.
“I don’t like waiting,” he said, louder.
“Think of it this way,” she suggested, not moving from the chair where she sat, “Fuchs is dying out there. When those fireproof doors open again you can go out and stand over his dead body.”
He nodded, but it was perfunctory. The thought of victory over Fuchs obviously didn’t outweigh his innate fear for his own life.
Fuchs’s lungs were burning. The metal walls of the ventilator shaft were scorching hot now as he crawled along blindly, dragging Nodon’s inert body with one pain-cramped hand. He couldn’t see Amarjagal or Sanja behind him. He didn’t even know if they were still there. His entire world had narrowed down to this smoke-filled, blistering hot purgatory.
Through tear-filled eyes he saw a light up ahead. It can’t be, he told himself. I’m starting to hallucinate. The garden outside is still in its nighttime lighting mode. There can’t be bright lighting out there—
His heart clenched in his chest. Unless the guards have turned up all the outdoor lights! Like a badger, Fuchs scuttled along the upward-slanting shaft, leaving Nodon and the others behind. Light! Air! He bumped his head against a metal grill, feeling blessedly cool air caressing his hot, sooty face. The smoke was streaming out. Fresh air was seeping in.
With his bare hands Fuchs battered the grill, punched it until his knuckles were raw and bleeding, butted it with his head, finally forced it open by wedging his feet against the sides of the shaft and leaning one powerful shoulder against the thin metal and pushing with all his strength. It gave way at last.
He took one huge gulp of fresh air, wiped at his eyes with grimy hands, then ducked back down the shaft to grab Nodon by the collar of his coveralls and haul him up onto the roof. Amarjagal’s head popped up behind Nodon’s booted feet. She too was grimy, soot-streaked. But she smiled and pulled herself out of the shaft.
“Stay low,” Fuchs hissed. “The guards must be patrolling the grounds.”
Sanja came up, and crawled on his belly to lay beside Fuchs. They looked out onto the splendid garden just beyond the mansion’s wall and, farther, to the trees and green flowering shrubbery of this artificial Eden planted deep below the surface of the Moon.
And there were guards standing out there, armed with assault rifles, ready to shoot to kill.
SHINING MOUNTAIN BASE
You there!” the guard yelled. “Stop that or I’ll shoot!”