Chapter 10: Marriage of Convenience

Bruce Gordon jerked the door open to yell for Izzy while he tucked the bit of notebook cover into his pocket. Then he stopped as something nibbled at his mind; the odor Gordon had smelled before registered. He yanked out the bit of notebook and sniffed. It hadn’t been close enough for any length of time to be contaminated by Mother Corey, so the smell could only come from one place.

He checked the batteries on his suit and put it on quickly. There was no point in wearing the helmet inside the dome, but it was better than trying to rent one at the lockers. He buckled it to a strap. The knife slid into its sheath, and the gun holster snapped onto the suit. As a final thought, he picked up the stout locust stick he’d used under Murdoch.

There were no cabs outside tonight, of course. The streets were almost deserted, except for some prowler or desperation-driven drug addict. He proceeded cautiously, however, realizing that it would be just like Sheila to ambush him. But he reached the exit from the dome with no trouble.

“Special pass to leave at this hour,” the guard there reminded him. “Of course, if it’s urgent, pal...”

Gordon was in no mood to try bribes. He let his hand drop to the gun. “Police Sergeant Gordon, on official business,” he said curtly. “Get the hell out of my way.”

The guard thought it over, and reached for the release. Gordon swung back as he passed through. “And you’d better be ready to open when I come back.”

He was in comparative darkness almost at once, and tonight there was no sign of the lights of patrolling cops. Then three specks of glaring blue light suddenly appeared in the sky, jerking his eyes up. They were dropping rapidly.

Rockets that flamed bright blue--military rockets! Earth was finally taking a hand!

He crouched in a hollow that had once been some kind of a basement until the ships had landed and cut off their jets. Then he stood up, blinking his eyes until they could again make out the pattern of the dim bulbs. He’d seen enough by the rocket glare to know that he was headed right. And finally the ugly half-cylinder of patched brick and metal that was the old Mother Corey’s Chicken Coop showed up against the faint light.

He moved in cautiously, as silently as he could, and located the semi-secret entrance to the building without meeting anyone. Once in the tunnel that led to the building, he felt a little safer.

He removed his helmet, and strapped it to the back of his suit, out of the way. The old hall was in worse shape than before. Mother Corey had run a somewhat orderly place, with constant vigilance; Bruce Gordon could never have come into the hallway without being seen in the old days.

Then a pounding sound came from the second floor, and Gordon drew back into the denser shadows, staring upwards. A heavy voice picked up the exchange of shouts.

“You, Sheila, you come outa there! You come right out or I’m gonna blast that there door down. You open up.”

Gordon was already moving up the stairs when a second voice reached him, and this one was familiar. “Jurgens don’t want you; all he wants is this place--we got use for it. It don’t belong to you, anyhow! Come out now, and we’ll let you go peaceful. Or stay in there and we’ll blast you out--in pieces.”

It was the voice of Jurgens’ henchman who had called on Mother Corey before elections. The thick voice must belong to the big ape who’d been with him.

“Come on out,” the little man cried again. “You don’t have a chance. We’ve already chased all your boarders out!”

Gordon tried to remember which steps had creaked the worst, but he wasn’t too worried, if there were only two of them. Then his head projected above the top step, and he hesitated. Only the rat and the ape were standing near a heavy, closed door. But four others were lounging in the background. He lifted his foot to put it back down to a lower step, just as Sheila’s muffled voice shrilled out a fog of profanity. He grinned, and then saw that he’d lifted his foot to a higher step.

There was a sharp yell from one of the men in the background and a knife sailed for him, but the aim was poor. Gordon’s gun came out. Two of the men were dropping before the others could reach for their own weapons, and while the rat-faced man was just turning. The third dropped without firing, and the fourth’s shot went wild. Gordon was firing rapidly, but not with such a stupid attempt at speed that he couldn’t aim each shot. And at that distance, it was hard to miss.

Rat-face jerked back behind the big hulk of his partner, trying to pull a gun that seemed to be stuck; a scared man’s ability to get his gun stuck in a simple holster was always amazing. The big guy simply lunged, with his hands out.

Gordon side-stepped and caught one of the arms, swinging the huge body over one hip. It sailed over the broken railing, to land on the floor below and crash through the rotten planking. He heard the man hit the basement, even while he was swinging the club in his hand toward the rat-faced man.

There was a thin, high-pitched scream as a collarbone broke. He slumped onto the floor, and began to try hitching his way down the steps. Gordon picked up the gun that had fallen out of the holster as the man fell and put it into his pouch. He considered the two, and decided they would be no menace.

“Okay, Sheila,” he called out, trying to muffle his voice. “We got them all.”

“Pie-Face?” Her voice was doubtful.

He considered what a man out here who went under that name might be like. “Sure, baby. Open up!”

“Wait a minute. I’ve got this nailed shut.” There was the sound of an effort of some kind going on as she talked. “Though I ought to let you stay out there and rot. Damn it ... uh!”

The door heaved open then, and she appeared in it; then she saw him, and her jaw dropped open slackly. “You!”

“Me,” he agreed. “And lucky for you, Cuddles.”

Her hand streaked to a gun in her belt. “Kill him!”

This time, he didn’t wait to be attacked. He went for the door, knocking her aside. His knee caught the outside of her hip as she spun; she fell over, dropping the gun.

The two men in the room were both holding knives, but in the ridiculous overhand position that seems to be an ingrained stupidity of the human race, until it’s taught better. A single flip of his locust club against their wrists accounted for both of the knives. He grabbed them by the hair of their heads, then, and brought the two skulls together savagely.

Sheila lay stretched out on the floor, where her head had apparently struck against the leg of a bed. Gordon shoved the bodies of the two men aside and looked down at the wreck of a man who lay on the dirty blanket. “Hello, O’Neill,” he said.

The former leader of the Stonewall gang stared up at the club swinging from Gordon’s wrist. “You ain’t gonna beat me this time? I’m a sick man. Sick. Can’t hurt nobody. Don’t beat me again.”

Gordon’s stomach knotted sickly. Doing something under the pressure of necessity was one thing; but to see the sorry results of it later was another. “All right,” he said. “Just stay there until I get away from this rat’s nest and I won’t hit you. I won’t even touch you.”

He was sure enough that it was no act on O’Neill’s part; he wasn’t so sure about Sheila. He checked the two men on the floor, who were still out cold. Then he stepped through the door carefully, to make sure that the big bruiser hadn’t come back.

His ears barely detected the sound Sheila made as she reached for the knife of one of the men. Then it came--the faintest catch of breath. Gordon threw himself flat to the floor. She let out a scream as he saw her momentum carry her over him; she was at the edge of the rail, and starting to fall.