They returned the fire, must have been a whole squad out there. Pieces of plastic flew out of the back wall and slugs screamed down the corridor. It was good cover, I knew there was nobody coming up behind me. Keeping as flat as I could I crawled in the opposite direction, out of the line of fire. I turned two corners before I was far enough from the guns to risk standing up. My knees were shaky and great blobs of color kept fogging my vision. The searchlight had done a good job, I could barely see at all in the dim light. I kept moving slowly, trying to get as far away from the gunfire as possible. The squad outside had fired as soon as I had opened the door, that meant standing orders to shoot at anyone who tried to leave the building. A nice trap. The cops inside would keep looking until they found me. If I tried to leave I would be blasted. I was beginning to feel very much like a trapped rat. Every light in the store came on and I stepped, frozen. I was near the wall of a large farm-goods showroom. Across the room from me were three soldiers. We spotted each other at the same time, I dived for the door with bullets slapping all around me. The military was in it too, they sure must have wanted me bad. A bank of elevators was on the other side of the door-and stairs leading up. I hit the elevator in one bounce and punched the sub-basement button, and just got out ahead of the closing doors. The stairs were back towards the approaching soldiers, I felt like I was running right into their guns. I must have made the turn into the stairs a split second ahead of their arrival. Up the stairs and around the first landing before they were even with the bottom. Luck was still on my side. They hadn’t seen me and were sure I had gone down. I sagged against the wall, listening to the shouts and whistle blowing as they turned the hunt towards the basement. There was one smart one in the bunch. While the others were all following the phony trail I heard him start slowly up the stairs. I didn’t have any gas grenades left, all I could do was climb up ahead of him, trying to do it without making a sound. He came on slowly and steadily and I stayed ahead of him. We went up four flights that way, me in my stocking feet with my shoes around my neck, his heavy boots behind me making a dull rasping on the metal stairs. As I started up the fifth flight I stopped, my foot halfway up a step. Someone else was coming down, someone wearing the same kind of military boots. I found the door to the hall, opened it behind me and slipped through. There was a long hall in front of me lined with offices of some kind. I began to run the length of it, trying to reach a turning before the door behind me could open and those exploding slugs tear me in half. The hall seemed endless and I suddenly realized I would never reach the end in time. I was a rat looking for a hole-and there was none. The doors were locked, all of them, I tried each as I came to it, knowing I would never make it. That stairwell door was opening behind me and the gun was coming up. I didn’t dare turn and look but I could fee] it. When the door opened under my hand I fell through before I realized what had happened. I locked it behind me and leaned against it in the darkness, panting like a spent animal. Then the light came on and I saw the man sitting behind the desk, smiling at me.
There is a limit to the amount of shock the human body can absorb. I’d had mine. I didn’t care if he shot me or offered a cigarette-I had reached the end of my line. He did neither. He offered me a cigar instead. “Have one of these, diGriz, I believe they’re your brand.” The body is a slave of habit. Even with death a few inches away it will respond to established custom. My fingers moved of their own volition and took the cigar, my lips clenched it and my lungs sucked it into life. And all the time my eyes watched the man behind the desk waiting for death to reach out. It must have shown. He waved towards a chair and carefully kept both hands in sight on top of the desk. I still had my gun, it was trained on him. “Sit down diGriz and put that cannon away. If I wanted to kill you, I could have done it a lot easier than herding you into this room.” His eyebrows moved up in surprise when he saw the expression on my face. “Don’t tell me you thought it was an accident that you ended up here?” I had, up until that moment, and the lack of intelligent reasoning on my part brought on a wave of shame that snapped me back to reality. I had been outwitted and outfought, the least I could do was surrender graciously. I threw the gun on the desk and dropped into the offered chair. He swept the pistol neatly into a drawer and relaxed a bit himself. “Had me worried there for a minute, the way you stood there rolling your eyes and waving this piece of field artillery around.” “Who are you?” He smiled at the abruptness of my tone. “Well, it doesn’t matter who I am. What does matter is the organization that I represent.” “The Corps?” “Exactly. The Special Corps. You didn’t think I was the local police, did you? They have orders to shoot you on sight. It was only after I told them how to find you that they let the Corps come along on the job. I have some of my men in the building, they’re the ones who herded you up here. The rest are all locals with itchy trigger fingers.” It wasn’t very flattering but it was true. I had been pushed around like a class M robot, with every move charted in advance. The old boy behind the desk-for the first time I realized he was about sixty-five-really had my number. The game was over. “All right Mr. Detective, you have me so there is no sense in gloating. What’s next on the program? Psychological reorientation, lobotomy-or just plain firing squad?” “None of those. I’m afraid. I am here to offer you a job on the Corps.” The whole thing was so ludicrous that I almost fell out of the chair laughing. Me. James diGriz, the interplanet thief working as a policeman. It was just too funny. He sat patiently, waiting until I was through.