Sten by Chris Bunch; Allan Cole Page A

drilling with…riot guns," Oron said, and smiled at his successful memory. "They will be conducting an extermination drive soon.
    And we are now too many to evade them."
    "How many in your gang?"
    "Fifteen now," Fadal answered.
    Mahoney calculated quickly. The tiny Imperial detachment had its own airlock. The inquiry wouldn't be too loud if he got what he wanted…"Passage offworld. For all of you. To any Imperial world."
    Sten discovered he'd stopped breathing. He took a deep breath and looked disbelievingly at Mahoney.
    "I can do it. You people raid Thoresen's quarters. Bring me anything that says Bravo Project. Which you can deliver on the ship. The Empire keeps its bargains."
    "I do not think there's any need to…debate this. Is there?"
    Mahoney stood up.
    There wasn't.
    The patrolman stalked to the end of his beat and stopped. He yawned. Then turned and started back down the corridor.
    Sten oozed from the vent in the
    wall…breathe…breathe…pace…pace…forward. Moving up on the guard. Keeping in time. Eyes on the patrolman's back. Closing.
    In step. Inside the three-meter awareness zone. Eyes off target.
    Mind blank.
    Sten's left hand curled around the patrolman's neck. Cramped the big man's head hard back as he drove his knife deep into kidney. Breath whuffled. The man gargled. Sten sidestepped as the corpse voided, then dragged the patrolman back to the vent and stuffed him in. He ran down the corridor, to the beginning of the Exec section. Found the paneling and pried.
    When the Delinqs had pored over the complete plans for The Eye that Mahoney had blind-dropped for them in the Visitors'
    Center airways, they'd found the key.
    Evidently the Execs were more delicate than Techs or Migs.
    Most of the passageways, particularly those around the higher-echelon areas, were subdivided with an inner, noise-insulating wall.
    The paneling came clear, and Sten beckoned. The other fourteen Delinqs poured out of the vents and streamed toward him. One by one they slithered into the wallspace. Oron was in the middle, blank-faced. Fadal guided him into the inner wall.
    Sten cursed silently, and hoped Oron's memory would return quickly because if they failed, most of them would die in The Eye.
    Even if a few managed to get south again, into Mig country, there'd be an endless stream of extermination drives.
    Again, Sten realized there was no choice. Bet grudgingly agreed. And then vacillated between eagerness to see new worlds and worry about whether they'd fit in. Sten figured that was a lucky sign.
    The wallspace narrowed. Sten sucked his chest in. Must be a collision door. His chest stuck for a minute. Sten nearly panicked, then remembered to empty his lungs. He slid through easily.
    They huddled outside the great double doors to Thoresen's quarters. Sten curiously touched the material. Rough. Grainy.
    Like fatigued steel. But rougher. Sten wondered why Thoresen didn't have the surface—it appeared organic—worked smooth.
    Bet set the pickup to another frequency, and touched it to the door. Eyes closed…her fingers ran across the pressure switches.
    Inaudible pressure increased/decreased in Sten's ears. There was a click. The main lock was open.
    Bet extracted a plastic rod from her pouch. Touched the heat button, and positioned it carefully in the middle of the door's panel. On the end of the rod, heated to human body temperature, was a duplicate of Thoresen's index fingerprint.
    Sten wondered how Mahoney had obtained it.
    The door chunked—the Delinqs grabbed for weapons—and swung open.
    Sten and the others cat-walked inside.
    Time stopped. They were in space. They were in an exotic, friendly jungle.
    They were in the very top of The Eye. Thoresen's quarters. The cover to the dome top was open, and space glittered down at them. Sten was the only one who'd seen off-Vulcan. He had enough presence to softly close the doors and look around.
    There was no one else in the dome.
    A garden. With furniture here and there,