This Fortress World by Gunn James

Author:Gunn, James [Gunn, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: E-Reads
Published: 2010-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

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Chapter Twelve

There was no point in struggling. My gun was gone, and the knife in my sleeve was gone. Sabatini wasn't alone.

I was jerked to my feet. My jacket was stripped off. My hands were tied behind me. I accepted everything numbly. I was an automaton, without life of my own, without hope or fear or thought. I waited for them to cut off my feet.

Sabatini was chuckling again. "The old hot box. They never learn."

I waited. They led me out through the narrow lanes between the stacks. When I stumbled in the darkness, they jerked me up.

They're waiting until they get me out where they can carry me, I thought. But when we came out in the little cleared space in front of the open cargo door, they stopped me, but they didn't cut off my feet. Besides Sabatini there was a big one and a little one. In the dim starlight coming through the door, I saw that they were all dressed in real uniforms, orange and blue. It should have meant something to me, but it didn't.

"You caught him," someone said, vast relief in his voice. Silver gleamed dully, but I didn't recognize him. He was older than my venal friend. "Thank God! You'd never think, to look at him, that he had the Plague."

"At this stage," said Sabatini, "it hardly shows."

"What I can't figure out," the voice said, "is how he got in there."

"You can't?" Sabatini said. He sounded amused.

"We will always be grateful to the Emperor," the voice went on hurriedly. "You've saved us months of delay in quarantine and maybe even our lives."

"The Emperor lives to serve his people," Sabatini said dryly. "Now, if you will operate the hoist, we'll take this man where he can't contaminate anyone."

Silver shrank back farther into the darkness. "Of course," he gasped.

I edged toward the doorway, but a hand reached out to hold me back. A motor whirred softly. Chains rattled. A platform edged out into the starlight. Before it cleared the ship, Sabatini stepped onto it. One of his men handed me out to him. He held tightly to my arm with one hand, to the chain with the other. The other two mercenaries got on.

The platform swung out into the night air, swaying gently. It fell through the darkness, slowed, and thudded softly to the pavement. As soon as the Agents stepped off, pulling me after them, the platform swayed back up.

Across the field new lights sprang up. Someone shouted. The voice carried far through the night. A truck motor roared into life. Without haste but without wasting any time or motion, Sabatini pushed me to an orange-and-blue helicopter, through the door, and into a back seat. I sagged, unutterably weary of everything.

One of the mercenaries got in the back with me. He was a little man with a dark face and eyes that held glittering reflections of the distant lights. The other one who looked big and soft and laughed a lot climbed into the front with Sabatini.

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