A wild cry burst from the throats of all the people in the huge chamber-triumph from the Menel-conditioned guards, amazement and some fear from the raiders hovering around the fringes of the cordon of guards, stark raw terror from the slaves and Girls lined up ready to be led off to the stairs. This time the Menel had come up without even triggering the conditioning; this time they were desperate, and would be twice as dangerous as before.
No, even worse than that, said Blade to himself as he noticed that each Menel was carrying in one arm a long blue tube with a red lens at one end and several smaller black tubes on a mesh belt around their «waists.» This was obviously a weapon, probably one that made even the Graduk beamers look like a child's rubber knife, and the only good thing about it was that it suggested where the Menel might be going. They would most likely be on their way up to the Main Control, to shut off the Pi-field and then turn their advanced weapons loose, to make a clean sweep of everything within the stronghold that opposed them.
The Menel guards paid no attention to him as he dashed across the chamber; neither did the Menel. Both no doubt were too confident that they had victory almost within their grasp to worry about fighting the raiders now, with the crude weapons necessary as long as the Pi-field was active. Blade ran up to Stramod, who was busily sending off another mass of slaves and Girls. He reached out for the sack of bombs on Stramod's back.
«Quick! I need those.»
Stramod nodded and handed the bag to Blade. As Blade had expected, the mutant's cool head had not deserted him even in the uproar of battle and the shock of encountering the Menel. Blade quickly ran through his plan; Stramod nodded and grinned wolfishly.
«I'll throw in some men as a diversion while you make your move. Will you need anybody with you?»
Blade shook his head. «I can move faster alone.»
«Good.» The mutant's huge hand came out and clasped Blade's, then Blade turned around and began edging in toward the guards, the bulging bomb sack over his shoulder. Behind him Stramod was talking to Nilando, and Nilando was massing twenty men, to draw their swords and level their spears at the Menel guards. Then Nilando shouted, the twenty charged forward, and a second later so did Blade.
There were better than a dozen Menel visible now, the lead ones already approaching the foot of the stairs, the cordon of guards altering shape now to make a protected passage from the shaft to the stairs. Blade ran in toward the end of the stairway, keeping outside the range of the Menel's terrible crane-like arms, saw the end of the cordon near the stairway thinning out as the guards ran toward the shaft to meet Nilando's charge, and lunged straight at the widening gap between the last two men.
These at least did not ignore the huge and terrifyingly blood-spattered figure bearing down on them as harmless; their swords flashed up into a guard position-and then one fell from limp fingers as Blade kicked one man in the stomach and the other flew through the air and clanged off the wall as Blade smashed it out of the other man's hand. He didn't bother finishing off either man; he had to get up those stairs. He thrust the knife in his belt and drew the truncheon, for use against the Menel.
The first of these was just within reach of the foot of the stairs as Blade leaped past the two fallen guards. Two arms darted out, the pincers snapping with a sound like chains clanking together. Blade struck savagely at the nearest pincer with his truncheon, hitting it so hard the blow jarred his arm half to numbness, then plunged up the stairs two at a time. As he reached the top, he heard the sound of footsteps pounding up the stairs as the guards came after him, and the slopping sucking sound of climbing Menel.
The Main Control was an awesome array of consoles studded with switches and dials and readouts, a computerized technological paradise that would have made Lord Leighton turn pea-soup-green with envy. But Blade had no time to appreciate or analyze what he had come to destroy.
First, turn off the Pi-field. The panel with the master switches was squarely in the center of the complex, with a hard plastic chair in front of it for those rare occasions when the Ice Master had actually needed to sit down and look at the key to his stronghold. Blade strode over to it, stared for a moment at the winking fights. Then he reached out and systematically began flipping every switch and pressing every button. The lights began to die, and then from one second to the next there was a subtle change in the air, a change that seemed to trickle down on to Blade's skin like a thin liquid and make every hair on his body cling more closely. He knew that something important had gone-he would have to gamble that it was the Pi-field. And the second after that, half a dozen things happened at once.
A clutch of Menel guards burst into the room and dashed at him. He avoided their rush by a four-foot vertical leap to the top of one of the consoles, and batted the first two swords to reach for him away with his truncheon. With his right hand he reached behind him and began pulling bombs out of the pouch and setting the fuses with thumb and forefinger, then pitching them in long arcs through the open door with the sign Main Core above it. Exactly what was in there Blade had no real idea, but he found it hard to believe that anything would survive completely unscathed ten of those little bombs exploding in a confined space.
Now the bag was empty and he threw it in a guard's face and leaped down after it, smashing the man to the ground with his truncheon. The guards drew back to form another cordon around the head of the stairs as the first of the Menel appeared, with others beyond it, but Blade saw the Menel stop, turn, and retreat a few feet, almost to the edge of the top step. It had no time to go farther before the first of the bombs went off.
In the confined space the explosion was terrific and the noise beyond belief. Blade was never sure afterward how he or anybody else in the chamber escaped being pulped into jam by the concussion. That the bombs went off separately rather than all together perhaps was their only salvation. Flying fragments screamed into the room like demented banshees and chopped down guards right and left. Blade dove behind a console at the first blast, huddled there while the debris from the remaining nine slammed into the metal with harsh clangs, then vaulted over the console and beaded for the stairs. From within the Main Core room he could hear satisfactory sizzling and hissing noises like a gigantic fireworks display.
Those guards not too badly wounded seemed too stunned to resist as Blade brushed past them: Then he reached the first of the Menel. The creature's companions had escaped the worst of the blast. In fact, as Blade looked down the stairs he could see them and their guards retreating downward as fast as their respective gaits could take them. But this Menel had been fully exposed to the blast. It lay on its side, motionless, one limb half-severed and oozing a sticky sap-like green fluid. Blade was about to leap over it as he would have leaped over a fallen tree, then remembered.
This was an intelligent being. It might be dead. But it might not be, and if it wasn't, it needed help. He turned back to the chamber and began ripping the shorts off the bodies of the guards and tearing the tough plastic-like material into strips. These he bound around the half-severed limb until the flow of fluid stopped, then used a broken spear as a splint tied on with several more strips to hold the limb rigid. Then with exquisite care he picked the creature up. It weighed too much for him to carry alone-nearly three hundred pounds-so he snapped an order at one of the guards. The man's conditioning to serve the Menel was holding; he dutifully came over and picked up the «foot» end of the creature. Holding it between them like a misshapen log of wood, they descended the stairs.