The Return by Haiblum Isidore

Author:Haiblum, Isidore [Haiblum, Isidore]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780440173953
Google: 4XKjGQAACAAJ
Amazon: 0440173957
Goodreads: 2170040
Publisher: Dell
Published: 1973-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

He left the chute on the second floor.

A sign read: “Storage Area 3.”

An arrow pointed right.

He went right. The heavy bronze doors were at the far end of the hallways. The neuro was in his hand, his finger on the release stub. He moved as a hunter might, deep in the predator’s den. This was the jungle.

He seemed to be engulfed in a sea of turmoil. His hair stood upright, skin prickled, ears buzzed, vision undulated, walls and floors appearing to ripple and sag.

He blinked but could not restore normal perspective. He’s here, Cramer thought.

He was wet, but it wasn’t from rain. Sweat soaked his body; he gritted his teeth. His face assumed a skeleton’s grin. His eyes gleamed with a haunted, mad flame.

He listened for a second at the bronze doors before making his entrance, but heard only vague movements.

He kicked the doors open and went in, low.

A large yellow-walled hall stacked with crates and boxes. Bright glow panels stretching overhead. A railed pulley loaded and ready to go on tracks hooked to a freight ramp in the far corner, leading outdoors. Men turned in bis direction. White-faced, slack-mouthed. What was this?

Men reached for weapons.

Cramer rolled on the floor as a laser ate chunks out of the wall where his head had been an instant before.

Two went down under his neuro.

The pulley was moving.

Men crawled over boxes, crates, to get at him. Lasers buzzed, smoldered.

Cramer crawled from box to box.

A fat man jumped out into the open. Wide-eyed, staring, his laser cut a smoking line into the floor, split three crates wide open. Cramer moved.

He crouched behind some pipes running parallel to the south wall.

The fat man ran after him. The fat man was crazy.

Cramer aimed a blast.

Fatso got his legs crossed and went down.

The pulley was gone, vanished down the ramp.

Five men retreated toward an emergency exit next to the ramp.

Two others blazed away at Cramer, kept him pinned.

He had expected trouble, but not this much—and not this kind.

These men had reacted instantly. They’d gone for their guns the second he’d come through the door.

He had figured the surprise would be all on his side.

A large man sprang up and began to hop over crates. Another ran out into the open, down an aisle between stacked rows of boxes.

Cramer moved, cut in between some wooden crates, crawled over cardboard cartons.

The two men were in the open. There was something wrong with this. Cramer watched, brow wrinkled, eyes puzzled. The two birds stood, swaying slightly, indecision written on their faces.

They can’t find me, Cramer thought. It’s stopped them cold.

They didn’t move anymore. Like watches that had run down, their hands hung uselessly at their sides.

Cramer stuck his head over a box. He made a noise.

The two ignored him.

He stepped out into an aisle.

He walked toward the nearest one, the big guy.

The big guy looked at him.

Cramer stood before him.

Nothing.

Cramer touched him.

Nothing.

This pair was out of the count, turned to stone.

He went through their pockets.

Fatso, on the floor, was some kind of mart vice-president.

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