assault, but my very existence had focused down to shredding that panel. When it bent outward, still connected at the bottom like the lid of a huge tin can, I hurled myself into the hole.
For an endless moment I was caught halfway through, my head and shoulders in bright sunlight, an immovable target for anyone within sight. But I was on the opposite side of the shed from the big rig, and when the wall panel failed I found myself on hands and knees, free but without a weapon.
Twenty feet away stood a huge inverted cone on steel supports, and beyond that a forest of braces and piping. As I staggered away behind the pipes one of Norm-Daud's helpers saw me and cut loose in my direction, ricochets flying like hornets. Meanwhile the Freightliner moved inexorably toward the open gate, the Toyota's wreckage shoved aside, the massive trailer trundling its cargo of megadeath along with less than a half mile to go. I hadn't so much as a stone left to hurl at it.
But I didn't need one. Funny thing about a concussion wave: when that fifty-foot pipe detonated alongside the trailer, I didn't actually hear it. Protected by all that thicket of metal, I felt a numbing sensation of pressure, seemingly from all directions. My next sensation was of lying on my side in a fetal curl, a thin whistling in my head. Beyond that I couldn't hear a thing.
I must have been unconscious for less than half a minute because unidentifiable bits of stuff lay here and there around me, some of it smoking. The trailer leaned drunkenly toward the side where my bomb had exploded, every tire on that side shredded, and gouts of liquid poured out of its cargo tanks from half a hundred punctures. Still addled by concussion, I steadied my progress out of the metal forest by leaning on pipes and supports. I figured that if anyone on the truck had survived, I'd hear him. It hadn't yet occurred to me that I was virtually stone deaf for the moment.
Not until I saw the blood-smeared figure shambling like a wino around to my side of the trailer, wearing the remnant of an expensive black-leather jacket. He was weaponless. One shoe was missing. He threw his head back, arms spread, and I saw his throat work as he opened his mouth wide. Then he fell on his knees in a runnel of liquid chemical beside the trailer, and on his face was an unspeakable agony.
A better man than I might have felt a shred of pity. What I felt was elation. As I stalked nearer I could see a headless body slumped at the window of the shrapnel-peppered Freightliner cab. Now, too, I could hear, though faintly as from a great distance, a man screaming. It was the man on his knees before me.
Standing three feet behind him, I shouted, "Hey!" I heard that, but apparently he didn't. I put my foot on his back and he fell forward, then rolled to his knees again. I would have hung one on him just for good measure then, but one look at his face told me that nothing I could do would increase his suffering. Even though his bloody hair and wide-open eyes made him look like a lunatic, a kind of sanity returned in his gaze as he recognized me.
Still on his knees, he started to say something, then tried again, shouting. "What did this?"
I pointed a thumb at my breast. "Gas in a pipe. Boom," I shouted. He looked around and saw the long shallow trench that now ran along the pavement. The entire length of the shed wall nearest the pipe rail had been cut as if by some enormous jagged saw, and of course the pipe itself was nowhere. Or rather, it was everywhere, in little chunks, evidence of a fragmentation grenade fifty feet long.
He looked up at me with the beginnings of understanding. "How?"
I could hear him a little better now. "Acetylene is an explosive all by itself," I shouted. "Can you hear me?" He nodded. "You store it under pressure by dissolving it in acetone. Pump it into a dry tank and it doesn't need any prompting. As soon as it gets up to fifteen or twenty pounds pressure—like I said: boom," I finished,
For an endless moment I was caught halfway through, my head and shoulders in bright sunlight, an immovable target for anyone within sight. But I was on the opposite side of the shed from the big rig, and when the wall panel failed I found myself on hands and knees, free but without a weapon.
Twenty feet away stood a huge inverted cone on steel supports, and beyond that a forest of braces and piping. As I staggered away behind the pipes one of Norm-Daud's helpers saw me and cut loose in my direction, ricochets flying like hornets. Meanwhile the Freightliner moved inexorably toward the open gate, the Toyota's wreckage shoved aside, the massive trailer trundling its cargo of megadeath along with less than a half mile to go. I hadn't so much as a stone left to hurl at it.
But I didn't need one. Funny thing about a concussion wave: when that fifty-foot pipe detonated alongside the trailer, I didn't actually hear it. Protected by all that thicket of metal, I felt a numbing sensation of pressure, seemingly from all directions. My next sensation was of lying on my side in a fetal curl, a thin whistling in my head. Beyond that I couldn't hear a thing.
I must have been unconscious for less than half a minute because unidentifiable bits of stuff lay here and there around me, some of it smoking. The trailer leaned drunkenly toward the side where my bomb had exploded, every tire on that side shredded, and gouts of liquid poured out of its cargo tanks from half a hundred punctures. Still addled by concussion, I steadied my progress out of the metal forest by leaning on pipes and supports. I figured that if anyone on the truck had survived, I'd hear him. It hadn't yet occurred to me that I was virtually stone deaf for the moment.
Not until I saw the blood-smeared figure shambling like a wino around to my side of the trailer, wearing the remnant of an expensive black-leather jacket. He was weaponless. One shoe was missing. He threw his head back, arms spread, and I saw his throat work as he opened his mouth wide. Then he fell on his knees in a runnel of liquid chemical beside the trailer, and on his face was an unspeakable agony.
A better man than I might have felt a shred of pity. What I felt was elation. As I stalked nearer I could see a headless body slumped at the window of the shrapnel-peppered Freightliner cab. Now, too, I could hear, though faintly as from a great distance, a man screaming. It was the man on his knees before me.
Standing three feet behind him, I shouted, "Hey!" I heard that, but apparently he didn't. I put my foot on his back and he fell forward, then rolled to his knees again. I would have hung one on him just for good measure then, but one look at his face told me that nothing I could do would increase his suffering. Even though his bloody hair and wide-open eyes made him look like a lunatic, a kind of sanity returned in his gaze as he recognized me.
Still on his knees, he started to say something, then tried again, shouting. "What did this?"
I pointed a thumb at my breast. "Gas in a pipe. Boom," I shouted. He looked around and saw the long shallow trench that now ran along the pavement. The entire length of the shed wall nearest the pipe rail had been cut as if by some enormous jagged saw, and of course the pipe itself was nowhere. Or rather, it was everywhere, in little chunks, evidence of a fragmentation grenade fifty feet long.
He looked up at me with the beginnings of understanding. "How?"
I could hear him a little better now. "Acetylene is an explosive all by itself," I shouted. "Can you hear me?" He nodded. "You store it under pressure by dissolving it in acetone. Pump it into a dry tank and it doesn't need any prompting. As soon as it gets up to fifteen or twenty pounds pressure—like I said: boom," I finished,
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