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which Loki was not expecting to see him. As the young man advanced, he
remained in almost continuous communication with Nick. And Nick, by
employing various
service machines he had at his disposal, was able to provide slight noises,
carefully timed distractions meant to conceal the slight sound of
Havot's quiet movements from Loki's perception.
Presently Havot came to a stop, standing very quietly in front of a door
that impeded further progress. Silently he lifted his carbine in both
arms.
Nick silently and partially slid open the door in front of Havot.
Not ten meters down the corridor which was now revealed, Havot could
now see Loki. Dirac's optelectronic bodyguard was waiting in suit-form, his
inorganic attention focused away from
Havot. Somewhat farther in the same direction, just round the next
corner, Nick was using a service robot to fabricate the sound of cautious
human footsteps, thus creating a phantom Havot, a pseudovictim, who was
walking steadily if somewhat suspiciously straight into the planned ambush.
And where was Dirac himself? For a moment Nick was frightened,
thinking he had lost track of the Premier. But no, there he was, in a
small room just out of sight of the spot where
Loki waited. The old man, in accordance with his usual behavior nowadays, was
curious and jealous and worried about what his wife was doing. But for
the moment at least the Premier was ignoring her. Intent on getting word
from Loki and Scurlock, he was standing by to make sure that the
intended abduction of
Havot went off without a hitch.
And Nick, even while talking with Jenny and guiding Havot, was
concurrently conducting yet a third enterprise. At this moment he
came bursting, in suit-form, into Dirac's private quarters, his violent
entry triggering alarms that for the moment rang unheeded. There was also
the detonation at knee level of some kind of booby trap. The
explosion was only partially successful against Nick's armored suit, which
lost one leg just at the knee.
But that was not enough to stop him. Even damaged, Nick's armored
shape crawled on to discover Loki's physical storage, three skulls'
volume of metal concealed behind a bulkhead panel.
In a moment Nick was rooting out his enemy with fire.
And on another deck, at the last possible moment, the avatar of
Loki waiting to ambush Havot became aware of the threat behind him. Loki's
suit-form blurred into evasive action at superhuman speed. But the
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bodyguard program had been waiting to take
Havot alive, not to kill him. Therefore Loki had to draw a weapon
before he could shoot back, and the fraction of a second's delay
proved fatal.
For once the optelectronic reactions could not be fast enough.
Havot's alphatriggered carbine stuttered and flared, spitting
armor-piercing packets of force. Enough of the missiles hit home to blast
another set of Loki's hardware into ruin.
And now events outside of the ten-cube abruptly demanded
Hawksmoor's undivided attention. When he suddenly abandoned the Lady
Genevieve, just as the distant sound of alarms and fighting reached
her ears, the lady was terrified.
The unexpected sounds of fighting also interrupted a conference
Prinsep had been having with Lieutenant Tongres, Ensign Dinant, and Drs.
Zador and Hoveler.
Before the fighting started, the commodore had been telling his allies that
there seemed no way to avoid launching a direct assault on the
berserker, but how soon they could mount any such operation depended to
a great extent on Dirac.
Some of those present thought that before undertaking such a desperate course
of action it would first be necessary to depose
Dirac as de facto ruler.
When Dirac to his horror saw the pieces of Loki's armored suit scattered along
a corridor seared and pocked with fragments of debris, and when the
Premier's bodyguard ominously failed to respond to an emergency call for
help, he quickly realized that he had been deprived at least temporarily of
his most powerful and loyal defender.
Catching a brief glimpse of Havot in the distance, he fired a few shots
in his direction, with no effect. Then the Premier, his mind almost paralyzed
in terror and rage, hurried to the waiting shuttle which Scurlock was holding
ready at an airlock near the site of the failed ambush.
Prinsep and his allies were astounded to learn facts that were soon confirmed
by Nick. First, Loki had effectively been destroyed in a two-pronged
attack. Second, Dirac, accompanied by Scurlock and Varvara Engadin, had fled
the station in a small shuttle. The shuttle had not gone to the yacht, where
Nick would soon have had the fugitives at his mercy. Instead it had gone to
the berserker.
Evidently the Premier had been ready to risk the danger of seeking
sanctuary with a berserker, confident that he could talk it into helping him,
still holding out his offer of collaboration in the disposal of a billion
protolives.
Christopher Havot, having survived without a scratch the shots taken at him
by Dirac, as well as the firefight with Loki, was smiling and
enjoying himself, quite ready to go along with whatever plan the
commodore might think up next.
When he looked at the situation objectively, however, Havot had to admit
that the Premier still seemed more likely than
Prinsep to come out on top in this complicated struggle. Utter
ruthlessness counted for a lot, as Havot understood full well. And the last
thing Havot really wanted was to be returned to
mainstream of Solarian civilization, where he would sooner or later
inevitably face punishment for his crimes.
But Havot did not want to be part of any group controlled by
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Dirac. And anyway, what did such future considerations matter against the joys
of the moment? This was fun!
Hawksmoor, still retaining his built-in but rather vague compulsion to
protect Solarian humanity in general, felt a great wariness regarding the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]