Urbis
Chapter Twenty-seven

He threw open a door and found himself on the emergency staircase. Whether to go up or down? He concluded that he would be expected to go down, so he went up to the next floor and tried the door. It was locked. He continued upwards. Meanwhile the Security men had entered the stairwell and were moving both down and up. He tried another door. It was locked. He fired a shot, and the leading Security man behind him went rolling down the steps, skittling his comrades.

Suddenly the door beside him flew open, and two men entered. One of them was saying something about the elevator not answering commands. They stared at Crispin as he pushed past them and ran helter skelter along the corridor.

He turned a corner and stumbled to a halt. A Security man was standing facing him, aiming a blaster at his head.

“Hands on your head,” the man commanded. Crispin was quick to obey. “This way,” ordered the officer, waving his gun. “And don’t try anything.”

The last instruction was superfluous. Crispin knew he was trapped, that the whole exercise had been enormously foolhardy, and that he was probably about to die, far removed from all those who meant the most to him. He walked steadily ahead of the Security man, hoping for a quick death.

Tana was just leaving Shah’s office when the Security man and his prisoner approached.

Husband and wife goggled at each other, open-mouthed, astonished at finding each other here. For a moment, they risked betraying themselves by a display of recognition.

The Security man jabbed Crispin in the kidneys and urged him past Tana into Shah’s outer office. Crispin could not help giving a backward glance.

“Forget it, mister,” the Security man snarled. “She’s way out of your class. She’d wipe her feet on scum like you.”

Unnoticed by him, Tana hovered in the doorway, then entered, just as Shah emerged from his office.

“Is this one of them?” Shah demanded of the officer.

“It would appear so, sir.”

“Bring him into my office.” Shah glanced past him at Tana. “Tana, dear, make yourself scarce. This man is a dangerous criminal.”

The three men entered Shah’s inner office, and Shah closed the door. Tana tiptoed to the other side of the door and listened, frantic to find a way to save Crispin’s life. She couldn’t quite grasp what was happening: Crispin was here in the city, and had somehow become involved with the Underground. Was it chance that had brought him to Sector One, to Shah’s office, or had he known she was here? Had he perhaps made contact with Jameson before he was killed? She strained her ears to catch something of the conversation going on on the further side of the door.

“All right, fellow,” said Shah, swaggering in front of Crispin’s chair, “are you going to make it easy on yourself by telling us a bit about your setup? Or are you going to be difficult?”

“I have nothing to say,” said Crispin.

Emboldened by the blaster poised a few centimetres from Crispin’s ear, Shah bent forward and grabbed Crispin’s overall. “Listen,” he said menacingly, “you know you’re not going to get out of here alive. The choice is between a quick clean death at the point of a blaster, or a very nasty death out there in the bay. Your friends are all dead, they’re not going to help you. And before long we’ll have all you Underground rabble sorted out. D’you hear me?”

Crispin said nothing.

Exasperated, Shah went to the viewphone. “Shirley,” he said to the woman whose face appeared on the screen, “is the commander there?”

“He’s out of the office at the moment, Mr. Shah,” Shirley replied. “It seems there’s been some sort of a raid...”

“You don’t need to tell me there’s been a raid!” Shah blustered. “I’ve got one of the bastards in my office!”

“Oh,” said Shirley. “I see. I’ll page the commander and have him come up, then.”

“Do it!” said Shah. He then called Hanbury’s office, but there was no reply. “I suppose he’s gone home,” Shah muttered. “You,” he said, turning to the Security man, “don’t shift your blaster by a millimetre. I’m going to get a recorder from Hanbury’s office.” He looked meaningfully at Crispin. “So that we can record all the nuggets of information that this fellow is going to give us.”

“Very good, sir.”

Shah went out of the office.

The door had scarcely closed when it re-opened to admit Tana, who had concealed herself behind a couch in the outer office when she heard Shah about to emerge.

“You shouldn’t be here, ma’am,” the Security man said respectfully. “This character is dangerous.”

“I’m curious about him,” said Tana in her most artful voice. “I’ve never met anyone like him before. My life has been extremely dull until now. I’d like to talk to him.”

The Security man appeared to wince, and shifted uncomfortably. He was answerable to Shah, but one did not say no to the minister’s wife either.

“Alone.” Tana said firmly.

He shook his head. “I can’t do that, ma’am. He must remain under armed guard at all times.”

Tana sidled up to him where he stood, keeping his weapon trained on Crispin’s head. Slowly she stretched out her arms alongside his, until they were both holding the blaster together.

“He will be guarded,” she said, her voice silky smooth, seductive and yet insistent. Her hair brushed his face, and her perfume was musky and intoxicating.

“I don’t know,” he said. “If Mr Shah comes back...”

“If we aren’t quick,” said Tana anxiously, “he will be back. Now, wait outside.”

Hesitantly, the Security man released his grip on the blaster.

“I’ll see Shah has you promoted,” she smiled.

He backed to the door and went outside. Tana hugged Crispin, while still clutching the gun. “It is you, isn’t it?” she beamed.

“Yes, Tana,” he said delirious with happiness and disbelieving at the same time, “it’s me. I’ve come to get you out of here.”

“There’s no possibility of that now,” said Tana, suddenly adopting a businesslike tone he had never heard from her before. “We must just get you out of here.”

“But...”

“Listen!” Tana hissed. “There’s no time to talk. Tell your friends that this attack was premature. The real assault must only come when I give the word!”

“But...?”

“Sssh! There is no time to explain. Whatever we do, there is enormous danger. What I am going to do will seem strange, but it is your one small hope of getting away from here alive. I am going to set this blaster to stun, and I am going to stun you.”

Before Crispin could respond, Tana suited her actions to her words. Crispin fell to the floor, overturning his chair. Even as he did so, Tana flipped the blaster setting back to its deadly full power, turned it on the Security man as he came crashing through the door, and fired. He screamed and fell.

Shah rushed in, followed by several burly guards, who all stopped and stared at the two men on the floor and at Tana, whose distraught expression was only partly an act.

“What happened?” asked Shah.

“It all happened so fast,” said Tana, visibly shaken. “I just wanted to talk to the man, but he grabbed me. The guard tried to pull me away, and in the struggle he was shot with his own gun. He dropped it, and both the other man and I went for it. I got it, and it... it... went off!” She dissolved into tears, and went to embrace Shah.

“Stupid woman!” he yelled, pushing her away. “You’ve just killed a man who could have given us any amount of useful information about the Underground. Get out of here!”

Tana fled.

Shah turned to the guards. He pointed to Crispin. “Throw him out with the others for shark bait.” He glanced at the dead Security man. “And put this one in the mortuary.”

The men dropped Crispin casually onto the concrete, and one of them seized his wrist.

Then together they lifted Crispin again, took him through the door, swung him by his arms and legs, and launched him into the air.

His body hit the cold water with a splash. He bobbed to the surface and lay still in the dark.

“That’s got rid of that scum,” said Westy’s distant-seeming voice, and the little postern gate through which he had been ejected clanged shut. All that could be heard was the slap of the waves against the masonry and the far off hum of the city.

It was dark. Glancing back, he could see the lights in the windows of the towers. Ahead, the illuminated skyline of the city, a panoply of lights along the bay. He switched his attention to what was closer at hand. Three limp shapes drifted on the swell immediately in front of him. He kicked out, making as little disturbance in the water as possible, in case anyone should happen to be observing.

The closest was Marlon. He looked strangely peaceful, in spite of the blaster burn in the middle of his back. Neil, on the other hand, had a face contorted by horrible agony, and a large hole in his neck, where the blaster had taken his throat out. And further away was Ron, face down as he had been when Crispin had seen him before, shot between the shoulderblades. Their sufferings were all at an end.

His head filled with all the unbelievable things he had witnessed, Crispin struck out towards the shoreline, moving in a slow breast stroke that would conserve energy over the long swim. He had gone about a hundred metres when he felt something moving under his feet, brushing against them. He stopped swimming and began to tread water. He looked back towards where the bodies were floating. Something broke the surface between him and them, moving swiftly and purposefully, as if familiar with a certain routine. And then there was something on his left, moving in the same direction, a black triangle knifing through the waves. And then another on his right. And another.

Briefly, he heard the sound of something thrashing in the water, then all was still as before. His body was shaking. He didn’t know if he was shivering or shuddering or both. He resumed his slow breast stroke, stopping every so often to keep his body from losing heat through exertion.

And then he saw lights on the water, orange lights at the level of the water, and a cluster of four brilliant searchlights which slowly rose and fell, all the time moving in arcs that crossed each other in a scanning motion. As the lights approached, Crispin could see that they were on a kind of raft with virtually no freeboard, the black criss-cross pattern of a scissor lift mounted on the raft discernible against the deep purple of the sky. The searchlights were on top of the scissor lift, rotating as it moved up and down. There appeared to be no one aboard the raft, indeed, there appeared to be no room for any crew. Crispin guessed it was remotely controlled, and suspected that there were cameras as well as the lights aboard, surveying the waters of the bay.

There was something quite awesome about this soundless mechanical watchdog, Crispin felt, as he watched its slow but unfaltering progress. He became so mesmerised by it that he became almost oblivious to the danger that its all seeing eyes represented. He became aware that he would have to decide between appearing as a corpse or not appearing at all. It was better, he decided, not to invite its attention at all. As the lights skimmed over the water close to him, he lay flat on the water, and then snapped downwards from the waist in a neat duck dive, plunging as the light played over the spot where he had been.

He came up for air in the space between the raft and the beam of light, trusting that the cameras would only pick up what was lit. He spat out the foul tasting water of the bay. The raft chugged past, and he tossed in its wash. He dived again before the light astern of the craft could pick him out, and surfaced in the blackness, watching it move away, its scissoring framework visible against the lights along the great bridge and the ribbon of their reflections in the water.

He had been still for too long. He was starting to shiver. Hypothermia was starting to grip him, and he still had a long way to go. He dog paddled for a few minutes to improve his circulation.

And then it happened. Something seized his leg and hip and began propelling him through the water at frightening speed. It was shaking him. He twisted round enough to glimpse a large dark shape in the water behind him, holding him like a dog with a bone in its mouth. The sweeping rhythmical action of its body sent it and him surging through the water, and he heard a kind of gurgling roar in his ears. At the same time, he felt a curious sense of detachment, bizarre in the circumstances, almost as if he were watching someone else in this predicament.

The shark pulled him under the water. Resisting the urge to panic, even as his body seemed to succumb to spasms of pain and raw terror, Crispin pounded his fist against the beast’s snout to no avail. Then he sought to gouge out its unblinking jet eyes, clawing at the sandpapery denticles of its skin. And his lungs began to scream for attention, feeling as if they were bursting sac by sac. In his extremity, Crispin began kicking at the shark’s side with his free leg with frantic energy, though the blows he could muster could have been no more than flea bites to the monster that held him in its fearsome jaws.

But, inexplicably, it had the desired effect. The shark broke off the attack, as if it had been hunting other game and had realised its mistake. It circled once as Crispin broke the surface, gasping, and then with a flick of its tail it was gone.

With release came the pain, the stabbing, needle-like pain from his savaged thigh. Fearing the worst, Crispin tested the leg for movement, and was surprised to find muscles and tendons still responded, if somewhat grudgingly.

Blood was billowing from his wounds, and he began to feel weak and light-headed. He could not bear to think that he might now drown. He recalled a technique his father had taught him when he was a child, in a lake in the hills above Vale, a world away. He stretched out his arms on the surface of the water and floated restfully, his chest filled with air, his head partially submerged, raising it every ten or fifteen seconds to breathe. He felt relaxed, drifting with a steady current amid the seaweed and the faeces.

He realised he was drifting not only with the current but also into unconsciousness, and from there into death. He knew he must stay awake to survive, and if he swam the pain would keep him awake. He broke into breast stroke once more.

And slowly, painfully, movement did become easier, and the shoreline edged closer, tantalisingly slowly. In spite of a year in the city, Crispin was still in good physical shape, and it was to that, he knew, that he owed his survival.

But he had to struggle through a barrier of mind-wrenching pain for what seemed an eternity before dimly perceived shadows resolved themselves into something solid that he could aim for. Even as, at long last, the outline of a jetty loomed a few metres away, he felt his strength ebbing. With a flailing hand he grasped the step of a companionway ladder, the undertow still threatening to suck him back into the depths. His body collapsed on the unyielding steel, and he dragged himself beyond the reach of the waves before blacking out.

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