Quest for the Well of Souls - Jack L. Chalker [116]
"Hey! Something's coming up!" Wooley yelled, and both she and Vistaru tensed and the others started toward them.
The elevator door opened and emitted a hideous-looking cloud of mixed orange-and-green gases. It was thick and enveloped them. A wild shot was fired from near the entrance, then nothing.
The others reached the area where the cloud hung but stayed back cautiously when the first whiff proved acrid. The Yugash and Bozog advanced, disappeared, then reemerged moments later. The huge ball of smoke started to rise up and away as the automatic circulation machinery caught it.
"They are gone!" the Bozog exclaimed. "Both of them! Vanished!"
Renard shook his head sadly. "Now we are four, damn it all!"
"And, more important, he's eleven, even without including himself," Mavra responded. "This changes everything."
"We could give chase in the other car," the Bozog suggested.
She shook her head. "No, that's no good. It always stops at the upper door, remember? And it whines. So we get there, the door opens, and we're all taken." She turned to Renard. "Still got your energy pistol?"
"Here," he said, slapping his holster.
"All right, then. We'll give them some time, then we'll call a car. You'll spray it with stun fire before we board, and the Ghiskind and the Bozog will also check it out. When we get down, you'll spray again as it opens, and all the way down to the lower floor. We're going to go fighting!"
"But just that very activity will alert him," the Bozog objected. "Logically, he'll keep his people inside until he needs to send them out. Yulin will want to avoid something happening to one of them. He cannot know all our capabilities."
"I'm counting on that," she replied. "And on the fact that the lower car was down and they used the upper. If that is the case, we're safe for almost an hour. Ghiskind, you and the Bozog keep watch just in case. Renard, one last trip to the ship, and then it's do or die."
"Or learn to love Ben Yulin," he sighed.
* * *
Lights flashed, figures spewed forth under Renard's hands but Mavra's guidance. It took several minutes, but finally they were through.
"It's an automatic sequence," she told him. "If we manage the explosion, it's entirely possible life support will continue, at least for a while. If so, you might be able to get up here—with the others if you can—and get to the ship. Once you activate the fuse, don't waste time! If power goes, you'll be asphyxiated in the elevator. Get everyone you can, get inside, get up here, get into the ship, close the locks, and punch e-lift on the board. The ship will disengage and follow a course that will bring you within radio range of the Council inside two days, so then you call for help. They will board you, see you, and believe. Tell them New Pompeii must be utterly destroyed. Atomized. Otherwise, some scientists will come here, and some politicos will get control, and it'll all be for nothing. Everything must go."
Renard didn't like the tone. "You're talking as if you won't be among us," he protested.
"Maybe I will, maybe I won't," she replied. "We can't take the chance on me being here. If you can, get into the control room and get the people out."
"But they'll all be Yulin's slaves!"
She shook her head. "No, they won't. Physically, yes. But any mental controls put on them will fail. Nikki Zinder was under a love-slave compulsion to Yulin when she was lured here, but when they disconnected Obie to relocate him to New Pompeii, the spell was broken. It should be the same this time."
"All right then, but I won't leave without you."
"If it's necessary, you must!" Mavra snapped. "Believe me, Renard. You're the only one now who knows these procedures. And don't let anybody else go for me or try to rescue anyone else if they can't be gotten to immediately. You can't kill all those people for me. Promise me you won't!"
He sighed. "All right, I promise," he almost whispered.
They left the ship, locks open,