Then Nixie called out and pointed in a direction off to one side. A group of dark-colored, streamlined shapes was swooping down and spreading out to close from different directions around the still-rising hearse.
“Shiban PD fliers,” Murray yelled. “Looks like our friend might be up shit creek.”
The hearse had seen them, too, and banked away evasively. Panels opened in its side to reveal small ball turrets, each mounting a pair of stub weapon muzzles-similar, Hunt guessed, to the one concealed in the personal flier that had made the attack on Grevetz’s. Two of the police craft opened fire, but without visible effect. What looked like a streamer of yellow light flashed back from one of the hearse’s turrets, but was deflected by a shimmering patch of violet that appeared briefly in front of the police flier. The hearse twisted around to double back into a dive that carried it close by the upper part of the tower. Another of the police fliers fired, hit the building, and debris showered down onto the platform where Hunt and the others were still watching, mesmerized.
“Get under cover,” Hunt shouted, snapping out of it and waving at the others. They ran back toward the entranceway, Fendro leading. At the far end of the hall inside, the first yellow-uniformed figure was just emerging cautiously from the stairwell door.
Fendro turned as Keshen reached him. “It’s no good. They’re here,” he said bleakly.
Above, the hearse was hit by two bursts at once as it pulled into another turn. It exploded in a blaze of orange light and black smoke, and the remnants cascaded down over the city.
On the command deck of the Shapieron, Leyel Torres stood with a group of crew officers, taking in the view being picked up by the ship’s sternward-looking cameras, showing the upper spires and roofs of the city sliding by below. A holographic floor projection showed an image of the ship hovering above a cutaway representation of the levels and buildings beneath, as retrieved from ZORAC’s stored plans of the city. The flashing symbol showing inside the zone beneath the ship centered on a maze of alleyways and side streets at the base of a complex of interconnected buildings that merged into a step-tapered tower. The tower rose at the confluence of several of the wide traffic corridors in a part of the city covered by a high outer canopy.
“The club’s located down in there,” ZORAC said. “Probe three is registering high police-band activity centered in that area.” A couple of the Shapieron’s probes, hovering some distance above and freed from the curtain of jamming that the Jevlenese had thrown around Geerbaine, were picking up stray communications traffic above the city.
“And we’re sure that the canopy is of lightweight construction over this section?” one of the officers checked. “There won’t be any people up there?”
“That’s what the plans show,” Torres confirmed. He cast an eye quickly around the company. “We have to give it a try.”
“Message exchanges between police fliers and HQ,” ZORAC reported. “It sounds as if they’re attacking something.”
“How far can we reconfigure the external stress field?” Torres asked.
“Sufficient to arrest major falls below and redirect beyond city limits,” ZORAC replied. “There might be some local peripheral fallout.” The Shapieron’s drive created a zone of distorted space-time around the ship. ZORAC was saying that it could shape that external field into a force zone that would project objects clear of the vicinity.
Torres looked at the other officers. “The decision is mine, totally,” he said. “ZORAC, execute the plan as specified. We’re going in.”
“Geronimo!” ZORAC responded.
“What?”
“It’s the expression that Terran paratroopers used on going into action, back in the days when they fought wars,” ZORAC explained. “It seemed appropriate.”
“Just fly the ship, please.”
“Yessir.”
Inside PAC, Langerif stared bemusedly at the scene being relayed from outside, as the huge shape of the starship hovering over the city started descending. The voice of the chief who was in charge at Geerbaine came excitedly over the audio. “I don’t know what it’s doing… It seems to be going down again. It can’t be! It’s going to land on top.” On the view, a part of the city canopy immediately below the Shapieron was pulled up and fragmented into pieces which flew upward and out of sight. The voice became frenzied. “No, it isn’t slowing down! What is it doing? I don’t believe this. It’s going straight down through!”
“What is happening there?” Eubeleus screeched on the screen from Uttan.
“I think that the intelligence destined to supplant us may have written us off a little too soon,” Garuth said as he watched. He managed to make it sound satisfyingly mysterious. In truth, he hadn’t the faintest idea.
They came to a halt, defeated. There was nowhere to go, nothing more to be tried.
And then Hunt realized that Gina was staring up past him and pointing incredulously. He turned and saw that a section of the imitation sky almost above their heads had gone dark and was bulging inward. Seconds later it broke into huge sections of canopy and supporting structure coming asunder, parting sideways unnaturally instead of falling, and then disappearing upward as if snatched away by a giant suction cleaner. At the same time a voice boomed like thunder across the city in Jevlenese. Hunt’s head snapped around toward Murray.
Murray was bewildered. “It’s telling people to get under cover. I don’t-Jesus Christ!”
Hunt looked back. Silhouetted against the pale green outside, an immense shape consisting of a distorted cruciform fastened to a huge, streamlined tower that shrank away into the sky under the acute foreshortening of the perspective was coming down through the hole in the canopy. A roar of rushing air filled their ears, and minor debris scattered down and bounced off the face of the building above as the canopy above continued to buckle and tear.
“Goddamn spaceship!” Murray yelled hoarsely. “Spaceship coming down through the fuckin’ roof!”
“That’s the Shapieron!” Gina shouted dazedly. “Vic, it’s the Ganymeans!”
The starship came down through the circling police fliers like a battleship scattering minnows filling the volume above the city s rooftops.
“My God!” Danchekker exclaimed, staring up as the cathedral-like space between the four curving, swept fins enlarged second by second right above their heads. The retractable rearmost section of the main body which contained the entry locks was already sliding downward.
A bullhorn voice rang out, not as loud as before, and in English this time “That’s them, luckier than we hoped. Okay Vic we see you. Get everyone over. I’m opening a door.” Never had Hunt been more glad to hear the voice of a computer.
Murray yelled something at Fendro, who came out of his funk and pressed a button inside a coverplate by the entrance. The doors closed, cutting off the police who had started moving forward across the hall inside. Hunt was already urging the others back across the landing platform.
The Shapieron could not maneuver close enough to the building to lower its rear section onto the platform, but was hanging overhead with the opened entrance just past the edge and a short distance below. Gina came to the rail and looked down into what appeared to be a bottomless void between the stern section of the ship, hanging in space, and the lower part of the tower, which was overhung, back beneath the platform. Inside the opened lock, Ganymean figures were gesturing frantically.
“It’s okay,” ZORAC’s voice encouraged. “You’re in a shaped field. I’ll steer you in.”
Hunt urged her up onto the guardrail. Consciously she wanted to do it, but some deep-rooted, primeval survival instinct held her back. She shook her head weakly. “I’m not sure I can.”