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dark pigment was a bluish-grey.
"The sons of bitches didn't have to kill him!" O'Brien said. "Poor fellow! I didn't understand a
word he ever said to me, but he could make me laugh. He was a good Joe."
"No talking," Deep Voice said. They went down another hall, across the dining-room and into
Tarhe's study. Two Hawks pulled up the painting that was supposed to hide the safe. By the light of a
flashlight held by Deep Voice, he turned the dial, marked with the numbers of the modified Akhaivian
alphabet. The door swung open, and he found his derringer and automatic in a small cardboard box.
Deep voice extended his hand for the weapons. Reluctantly, Two Hawks gave them to him.
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Evidently, they were as much prisoners of the Blodlandish as of their former captors.
The party left the studio and went to the main front door of the asylum. Two men with rifles
stepped out on the big verandah and a minute later came back with an all-clear. Two Hawks and
O'Brien, followed by the other four Blodlandish, stepped through the door. The city down below was
dark except for fires here and there that had not yet been put out. The moon was behind thick dark
clouds.
They started down the steps, their destination two autos. These were parked behind a shrubbery
along the curve of the driveway to their left. The front ends of the cars were barely visible. Just as the two
riflemen reached the ground, the flash and bang of guns came out of the shrubbery. Two Hawks pushed
O'Brien hard toward the ground and then hurled him-self down the steps and out in a dive.
He hit the bare dirt with a force that almost knocked the breath from him and rolled sideways.
When he was in the shrubbery that grew along the base of the verandah, he stopped. More fire spurted
from the small arms of the men in the bushes. The two Blodlandish who had been in front of him were on
the ground at the foot of the steps. One was wounded or dead. The other fired at the Perkunishans from
a prone posi-tion. Two Hawks presumed that the attackers were Perkuni-shans and they had come with
the same idea as the Blodlandish but a little later.
A man above Two Hawks screamed. A body fell over the verandah railing just above him and
crashed down on his legs. By then the other Blodlandish had scattered for cover behind posts and the
railing of the verandah. A Perkunishan toppled from the bushes. The others took up a new position
behind the Blodlandish cars. Lights were coming on in the house and outlining the men on the verandah.
A Blodlandish slumped over the railings, his gun falling into the ground under the bushes near Two
Hawks. The man with the rifle grunted and quit firing.
Two Hawks crawled to the gun that the agent had dropped. With this in his hand, he left the
relative safety of the steps and bushes and snaked towards the dead or unconcious rifle-man. Using the
body as cover, he searched through its pockets. He found several small boxes, slid one open, and felt
cylindri-cal shapes packed within. They were linen cartridges with brass percussion caps.
He examined the revolver with his fingers, broke it open, and filled the six chambers. Behind him,
O'Brien groaned and said, "I'm hit. My arm's numb. Oh, Christ, I'm bleeding! I'm going to die!"
"Shut up about dying," Two Hawks said. "You sound too strong to be badly hurt."
He rolled over and felt O'Brien's upper left arm. His fingers came away sticky. O'Brien said, "I'm
going fast. The life's pumping out of me with every beat of my heart."
"Quit crying," Two Hawks said. "You just think you're dying, maybe because you want to. It's
only a flesh wound and not very deep at that."
"You ain't the one who's hit."
Two Hawks raised his head to look over the body. Two men on the verandah and two behind
the cars were still shoot-ing. Then one -- he looked like Deep Voice -- turned to shoot through the
window behind him at the light bulbs outlining him. There was a sound as of a fist hitting flesh, and he flew
forward. He pitched on his face and was lost from Two Hawks' view except for one foot. His revolver,
however, launched from a nerveless hand, broke the window.
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The survivor ran for the corner of the house. He bent over while he ran and fired at the
Perkunishans. Their bullets smacked into the wooden walls. Just as he reached the corner, he sprawled
out and slammed into the floor. Two Hawks sup-posed that, since he did not get up, he was either hit or
playing possum. If he was acting, he had done a good job, since his gun had also clattered on the floor.
"Two Perkunishans left -- that I know of," Two Hawks whispered to O'Brien. "And they must
have orders to take us dead or alive. Maybe they don't care which, otherwise they'd not have cut loose
at us in the dark."
He looked over the body again. He could see no men. They were probably crouching behind the
cars, reloading their re-volvers and discussing a plan of attack. They could not safely presume that
everybody was dead or incapacitated. They would have to come out from behind the cars.
Nor would they have much time to check. There was much noise in the house, voices shouting
questions, a patient scream-ing, and the sound of feet running back and forth. They would have tried to
phone the police, but the wires would have been cut.
Nevertheless, the gunfire could attract the police patrols on the streets in the city below. They
could soon be coming up thewinding hill, and, if they did, the Perkunishans would find their car blocked.
Unless, that is, they had left their vehicle below and had come up on foot.
Two Hawks waited patiently, his revolver cocked. O'Brien groaned, and Two Hawks told him
to shut up. He removed the long knife from the scabbard of the fallen rifleman. With one hand, he hefted
it and tested its balance. It would make a good throwing knife and would give him a fair chance to
demonstrate how effective his hundreds of hours of practice had been.
The Perkunishans had decided to proceed cautiously. One ran out from behind the car and
toward the protection of the corner of the verandah. Two Hawks let him go. It was too difficult in the
dark and at this distance to make sure of a hit with the revolver. Besides, if he refrained from firing, he
might convince them they had nothing to fear.
Slowly, he rolled over away from the body and swiveled around to face the shrubbery at the
other curve of the drive. As he had suspected, the second agent had gone through the bushes to
approach the other end of the verandah. Two Hawks heard a twig cracking during a brief cessation of
noise from the house. He crawled back to O'Brien and into the bushes at the base of the verandah. His
back was soaked with the sweat of fear, and his skin felt as if it were bristling.
When he reached the point where the verandah abruptly curved to go along the side of the
house, he stopped. He waited and then, as he had hoped, the Perkunishan dashed from the bushes
toward the shrubbery behind which he crouched. Two Hawks shifted the knife to his right hand and the
gun to his left. He arose, and, just as the man crashed into the bush, Two Hawks thrust the point of the
knife into his throat.
The agent burbled and fell to his knees. Two Hawks pulled the knife out, stepping to one side to
avoid the spurt of blood. The man fell over on his side.
The other Perkunishan called out. Two Hawks spoke softly in the only Perkunishan phrases he
knew, deliberately making them indistinct. Satisfied with this, the other agent left the cor-ner of the
verandah. Two Hawks stepped out from the bushes and walked confidently toward him. In the darkness, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]