key because there is nothing else they can do with us."

Ekaterina caught his arm. "Back," she warned.

Grushenko stood making gestures and talking, under the golden eyes of the guards. They loomed over him like idols from some unimaginable futurism. And suddenly the hatred which seethed in Holbrook left him; he knew nothing but pity. He mourned for Zolotoy the damned, which had once been so full of hope.

But he must live. His eyes turned to Ekaterina. He heard the frosty breath rattle in her nostrils. Already the coryza viruses in her bloodstream were multiplying; chill and oxygen starvation had weakened her. Fever would come within hours, death within weeks. And Grushenko would spend weeks trying to communicate. Or if he could be talked around to Holbrook's beliefs, it might be too late: that electronic idiot-savant might decide at any moment that the prisoners were safest if killed—

"I'm sorry," said Holbrook. He punched Ekaterina in the stomach.

She lurched and sat down. Holbrook side-stepped the red Zolotoyan, moved in under the guards, and seized a blast-gun with both hands. He brought up his foot in the same motion, against a bony black-clad knee, and heaved.

The Zolotoyan reeled. Holbrook staggered back, the gun in his hands. The other two guards trilled and slewed their own weapons about. Holbrook whipped the blaster up and squeezed its single switch. Lightning crashed between blue walls.

A signal hooted. Automatic alarms—there would be guards coming, swarming all over, and their only reaction was to kill. "The computer!" bawled Holbrook. "We've got to get the computer!" Two hideously charred bodies were collapsing. The stench of burnt flesh grabbed his gullet.

"You murdering fool!" Grushenko roared it out, leaping at him. Holbrook reversed his blaster and struck with the butt. Grushenko fell to the floor, dazed. The third black Zolotoyan fumbled after a dropped gun. Holbrook destroyed him.

"The computer," he shouted. "It's not a brain, only an automaton." He reached down, caught Ekaterina by the wrist and hauled her up. His heart seemed about to burst; rags of darkness swirled before his eyes. "But it is the interstellar commissar," he groaned. "It's the only thing able to decide about us ... and now it's sure to decide on killing—"

"You're insane!" shrieked the 

 Prev. P 20/24 next