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westward, another box was squeezed out by the artificial night. And two more, going eastward, were
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carried to their destination.
He walked until another westering box approached. He climbed over the railing and jumped onto the
belt. The light filled the belt area for a hundred feet in each direction. There was nothing he could do
about that, but he could rest. At the same time, he would be going faster than if he walked. He sat down
on the cool plate, his back against the box, and watched the east for a sudden glow in the night. It might
be caused by workers, but the probability was that it would announce the two killers.
Three minutes later, his box was snatched from him. Aware that it would be, he had risen and leaped
to the railing. Here was an intersection where the belt passed beneath a northward belt. The sensors of
the pair of mechanical arms stationed here had read the coded plaque on the box, had determined that its
route should be changed, and had lifted it and deposited it on a belt in a recess. Caird climbed up a short
ladder and got onto the north-going belt. For a moment, he thought about switching to the south-going
belt. In a little more than a quarter-mile, he could get onto an east-going belt. The immers would not
know where he was because they could not see his light. However, that would be the longer route to his
destination. He could take the chance that the immers would not catch up. How would they know when
they got to the intersection-if they got to it-that he had taken this belt? They would not know unless they
arrived quickly enough to see the light wrapping him like a photonic shroud. He was gambling that he
could switch to an east-going belt before then.
His back against another box, he passed quietly under the
Kropotkin Canal. Above him was rock, metal, water, fish, and the storm. He was, at the moment, both
subterranean and subaqueous. And he was passing from darkness into darkness, his presence birthing
new light. In the darkness behind were known terrors. Who knew what unknowns faced him?
("Corny," Repp said.)
("It's life," Dunski said.)
("Clinched, cloistered, and cloyed by clichés," Tingle said.)
The next voice startled Caird. He had thought that it was gone forever.
("I was wrong," Will Isharashvili said. "I've wrestled with the ethics of the situation, and I've decided
that I shouldn't just give up to avoid violence. What I think-")
("My God! Isharashvili rides again!" Repp said.)
("You can't keep a good man down," Dunski said. "And Will is good.")
("What I think," Isharashvili said gently, "is that-")
"Quiet!" Caird said more loudly than he intended. "Shut up, you fools! They've found me! I can't
think with you chattering away at me!"
Far down the tunnel, the darkness had opened like a fist to let light out. Two Lilliputian figures were
climbing over a box. He watched as they got down from the box and started trotting.
He was tired and desperate, but so were they. He climbed over the box, got down on the other side,
and trotted. Sooner or later, he would pass SCC workers. If he had been alone, he would, probably, be
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reported. The workers would assume, however, that the two organics had reported to HQ that they
were chasing the criminal. Those who asked the two officers if they wanted help would be told that none
was needed. The immers did not want other organics involved.
When he saw an envelope of light in the darkness ahead, he forced himself to run faster, and to climb
over the boxes more
DAY WOR LI)
vigorously. Fortunately, there were only three td get over before he got to the light. This came from an
office in a recess at the intersection of north-south and east-west belts.
He leaped out when he approached the steps and grabbed the railing. His chest heaving, breath
sawing, he ran up the steps. The light accompanying him would merge with the light from the office
windows. But that would not keep the pursuers from seeing him leave the belt.
He went past the windows. A man was sitting at a desk and watching a strip show while he drank
from an unlabeled bottle.
If there was another worker around, he or she could be in the toilet or sleeping in the back room.
Caird did not hesitate to take his chances. He ran around the corner, through the door, and at the man
behind the desk. The man had just put the bottle down when Caird charged in, and he did not see Caird
until he was almost on him. The man rose from the chair, saying, "What the. . . ?" Caird grabbed the
bottle by the neck and brought it down on the man's forehead. He just wanted to stun him, not severely
injure or kill him. The man fell backward over the chair and sprawled out, his eyes closed and his mouth
hanging open. Whiskey fumes rose from it.
Caird glanced at the half-closed door to the back room. A woman's head and the cot on which she
lay were visible. Her mouth was open, and she was snoring as heavily as the unconscious man. He
assumed that she had also been drinking the bootleg whiskey.
The man on the floor groaned, and his eyelids fluttered. Caird groaned, too, though not for the same
reason. He had to make sure that the man was unconscious for at least five minutes.
Gritting his teeth, disliking what he had to do, Caird lifted the man, propped him against the desk, and
hit him on the jaw with the bottle. The man fell over on his side.
33.
Caird dragged the body by the feet through the doorway. Forty feet eastward was one of the huge
mechanical arms that removed boxes from one belt to another. He dropped the man's legs and switched
the controls on the panel at its base to MANUAL. He slipped his hand into a metal-mesh glove and
moved it as he wished the arm and its "fingers" to move.
The man, his waist gripped by the "fingers," his body arched, head and arms and legs dangling, was
placed in front of a box on the east-going belt.
Caird brought the arm back to the upright position-it would not do for the immers to notice it sticking
out over the belts-and he ran back to the office. By then, his heavy breathing had become light. He went
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back into the office and got behind the door of the back room. The woman was still snoring. Caird
pushed the door so that it was an inch open, and he turned the back room light off. He put his
shoulderbag on the floor and took out the screwdriver and hammer.
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