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agree that you should talk to the Director; on some points, obviously, you
won't be convinced you're wrong until he tells you so. But in the meantime,
this discussion is explosive in the extreme; it had better be closed."
Insofar as Jorn could read Ailiss' expression, she was about to agree to this
baffling, inconclusive proposal; but she never had the chance. In mid-air in
Ertak's office a siren groaned briefly, urgently, and on Ertak's desk, just to
the left and directly in front of Dr. Chase-Huebner, the orange light went on.
It bad never been on before. It would never go on again. It meant, very
simply, that Dr. Cbase-Huebner -and Director Ertak?-had already waited too
long, and that even the Haggard would now never be finished.
The Sun, baleful though it had become, was still decades away from its last
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agony; but the cataclysm was upon them, all the same.
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The truck was covered and there was hardly anything to be seen from it. Jorn
and fourteen other crew members of the Javelin clung to the hard benches and
craned their necks around each other, trying to peer out the back over the
tailgate; but at first the administration building blocked off the view, and
then the driver was careening across Salt Flats at a pace which made
visibility less important than just hanging on. It was maddening.
All the same, a general distant roar of human and machine sound, massive and
ugly, came rolling clearly over the snarling of the truck's own engine.
If the sputtering of gas guns was a part of that clamor, it could not be
distinguished, at this distance, from the boundary fences; but there were
louder explosions too -explosive bullets, grenades, even an occasional mortar.
It was hard to believe that any sort of a mob could have gathered outside that
fence, in the middle of one of the most forbidding deserts in this entire
hemisphere of the world; but that was what the orange
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light had been triggered to foretell. And the fact that the mob was already
here and that the truck was already racing for the Javelin-could mean only
that it was huge, armed, and at least partially organized.
And it also meant, Jorn was fervently sure regardless of the evidence, that
somebody-a great many somebodies-had badly misjudged Jurg Wester, and the
likes of him.
The flickering night framed over the tailgate of the truck was streaked
briefly by the track of a rocket shell. The concussion from the tank-killer
hung fire long after the wake of the little missile had vanished, and its
residual image after it; and then, blam, there it came, from somewhere in the
middle distance. Obviously it hadn't been aimed at the truck, which in any
event was showing no lights; but it left behind no doubt that the mob was
armed. Of course at this speed a tire blowout would kill Jorn and everyone
else almost as instantly-
The tires screamed and the truck, yawing and lurching, slammed down to a dead
stop, piling all fifteen of them up against the back wall of the cab.
Accompanying the yell of brakes and tires was the awful grinding, pounding
note of gears being stripped: the driver had shifted down into first in order
to stop shorter than the brakes could manage alone, trusting to the creiVs
field gear to protect them and her own skill to protect her.
They were still trying to unscramble themselves from their own swearing black
homologous knot when the tailgate clanged down. "Outl" a woman's voice
shouted. "Hit that liftl Lock closes in seven minutesl Movel"
Jorn recognized the voice. It belonged to the armorer. Well, that explained
the drastic driving. She was waiting for them as they unscrambled and struck
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74 fames Blish I
turf, carrying a hooded torch further hooded by her gauntlet, between two
fingers of which she allowed only a razor-edge of red light to shear at the
ground. Even in the dim monochrome, however, Jorn could see that she was
bleeding a black rill from one nostril.
For an instant thereafter he was totally confused. Then, against the
starlight, he picked out the colossal shaft of the Javelin, sweeping
motionlessly into the sky as though she would never end. Beside her, seem-
ingly clinging to one long dully-gleaming curve, was' the delicate scaffolding
of the elevator, waiting to be extinguished like a flame at the moment of
take-off.
"That way," the armorer growled, "that way." She gestured along the sand and
salt with the razor-edge of the torch; but Jorn was already running. He could
hear others behind him. Far away, something-a bomb?-burst open with a deep,
heavy groan, and a minute temblor shook the desert under his pounding, feet.
Then the aluminum deck of the lift car was ringing with the trampling of boots
as they charged aboard, shoving each other and grabbing for cables or struts
they could only guess were there. "...thirteen... fourteen ... Now by the
Ghost ... All right, get in, dammit, fifteen!" A whistle warbled shrilly,
almost in Jorn's ear. The cab shuddered, and then, without any pause, lurched
skyward with a muscle-wrenching jolt.
After that, it did not geem to be going anywhere at all, despite the piercing,
unpredictable screams it sometimes uttered against its guide-rails, and the
jittering of the deck beneath their feet. Nevertheless it was rising, and as
it rose, Jorn could see more and more of the outskirts of the base. Now they
were seething with light and smoke, all along the perimeter. Tracers
criss-crossed the hot night air in all directions. The higher the car inched,
the more likely it seemed
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And all the Stars a Stage 75
to Jorn that everyone on it would be riddled before they would be able to
reach the faraway airlock of the Javelin.
Then, ages later, they were high enough to begin to see the general shape of
the attack. It was huge. Beyond the immediate, writhing lines of fire along
the fences, twinkling processions of vehicles were racing in nearly straight
lines over the desert toward Salt Flats. Near the horizon there did indeed
seem to be some bombs falling, and some of these small "nominal"
atomics. Evidently the government still controlled the air-which was good as
far as it went, but the planes would be under strict orders to stay well away
from the ships, where the main part of the mob obviously was concentrating,
and hence the only place where a really comprehensive explosion might be
decisive.
The lift quivered and rose a little faster. It brought them all high enough to
test their handbolds: with a heavy buffeting of wind-though the wind seemed to
be just as hot as the air on the desert itself had been. There would be no
more cool winds on this planet, not at any altitude at which a man could
expect to breathe, not even on the mountains.
Another rocket shell went searing past in a high hazy arc. Jorn stopped
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