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8

 

I could hear the big generator pulling hard, and the sparks fountained out, and Frazier was yelling, but I couldn't hear what he was saying. I was watching the two-inch strip of cherry red weld stitching another plate into what was going to be a million-dollar setup. Million, hell, a hundred million, over the next ten years! Nobody could match Frazier when it came to tech management; he had a nose for that kind of talent that could comb a potential genius out of a crowd of downy-cheeked grads quicker than I could spot a shaved ace in a set of bicycles. The new process was going to turn the food-processing racket on its ear, and Draco, Inc. would be sole proprietor. . . . 

Frazier was there, hauling at my arm and pointing across the room. The outer door was open, a white glare against the dark, and I could see them silhouetted in it for a second before it closed behind them, her tall and slim, and the little one beside her. They were coming down into the big room and I waved and started that way and something up above shifted and sparks hissed and somebody yelled and the garish flicker of the big welding torch cut out. Frazier waved his arms and went over that way, fast. Somebody was yelling: " . . . . it's hot! Get that plate clear, Brownie! Nulty, shut her down! All the way down!"

I got over to where a section of plate had dropped and sliced into the big cables ten feet from the side of the welder. There was a lot of smoke and a stench like burned cork. I got a couple of choice phrases ready for the framer who'd let it happen, and something made me turn and she was there, right in the thick of the smoke, holding something up in her hand, and I yelled and started toward her and saw her turn toward the sound of my voice and. . . .   

I was on the floor with my face against cold stone and I could still feel the scream that had ripped the inside out of my throat, and the churn of the generator was a deep throbbing coming through the floor and I got my head up and was looking at the open mouth of a manhole. There was a black toolcase lying beside it. It was Jess'. He'd left it there, after he'd used it to unlock the outer door. I was in the maintenance room above the big duct, and the rumbling noise was the pumps down below. I didn't remember how I'd gotten there.

I made a move to sit up and a big hook I'd forgotten about came down and ripped into my belly. I curled over it and rode the current of fire for a while; then I got a hand on the edge of the manhole and pulled. The fire was still burning, but I knew how to put it out. Down below the water was cold and black, deep enough to drown all the pain of living.

My face was over the opening; I could see a black glint down below. One more pull, Dravek; you can do it. One arm wasn't helping much, but who needs two arms? I used the good knee and felt my chest go over the edge and I was sliding down and then falling into soft black that closed over me. . . . 

* * *

The shock brought me out of it. For a while—maybe a few seconds, maybe longer—I rolled with the turbulence. Then I slammed something hard and the pain went clear through me from the top of my head to the end of my toes; and all of a sudden I knew I was in a duct, being carried along by the high-pressure stream, with my head banging the walls at regular intervals. I felt the duct widen, and I remembered the louvers ahead and got a hand on the water jets and pointed myself upstream and gave them a blast. I slammed the louvers hard, hung up there for a second or two—then slid between them and was out in the deep river, rolling end over end.

The cold was cutting through the suit, and I groped a little and thumbed the heat control up some, but not too much, because a little low-temperature anesthesia was a good idea for right then.

While I was doing all this, the river was taking me along to wherever it was going, which even in this day of improved methods for propagating human misery was probably the sea. I've been a sailor, but I never liked the idea of Davy Jones's locker. I got my head pointed upstream again and used my jets and steered for the right side of the channel. It wasn't easy to maneuver, because one leg seemed to be dead from the hip down, and the left arm had something wrong with it. The fire in my belly didn't seem important right then. I figured I'd get to think about it plenty, later, if there was a later.

I used the jets and edged forward and in less than a minute found an iron rung and held on. I had one good leg, and about an arm and a half; the fingers on the left one didn't seem to want to close like they should. I got an overhead grip and pulled up and got a toe on a rung and made another foot. This went on for a long time. Two or three times I forgot what I was doing and started to slide back, but each time an instinct that used to keep monkeys from falling out of trees made my hand grab and hold on.

The time came when I reached and there wasn't any rung, or any wall, and that seemed like a dirty shame and I went on feeling the air for about as long as it takes to light a slow fire under a missionary and watch it burn down. After a while I got a grip with a fingernail and hauled the legs up over the edge, which was no harder than swinging a piano in my teeth, and fell a couple of feet. That put me where I'd been trying to get: on my back in an empty street, with four slugs in me and cops looking for me, waiting to finish the job.

I crawled over to the nearest wall and lay against it and tried to check myself over. The trouble with the arm seemed to be due to a hole I could stick the end of my little finger in, just below the elbow. The leg was a little more complicated. The hip was broken up, but there was no wound on the outside; the suit was intact there. That meant the slug had gone in through the belly and hit the pelvic bone from the inside.

That brought me to the big one. I got my hand inside the suit just far enough to feel what I knew was there, and passed out cold.

When I came out of that one, I was lying on my side kissing cold pavement and watching someone ducking along in the shadows cast by a light on a tall pole far up the street. I thought about reaching for the little gadget Jess had told me was a reliable short-range killer, but nothing happened. I was part of the stone; just an eye peering back from that last thin edge, watching the show.

The oncoming figure went into a shadow that was too black to see through and came out, closer, and skittered across the street to my side and came along to me and stopped and looked both ways before she looked down. It was Minka, the girl with the blue hair. I started to open my mouth to give her my usual cheery greeting, and her face swelled up and spread until it blanked out the light and I gave it all up and let the darkness take me.

 

 

 

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Framed