The Dagger Affair - McDaniel David (хороший книги онлайн бесплатно txt) 📗

"Let's get out of here," he suggested. "We can come back in the morning with an army to dismantle the machine."

"And let Keldur get away to build another one? I'm afraid I missed him as he ducked behind the cabinet," said Waverly, "and you know my feelings about leaving a job unfinished. We don't leave until Kim Keldur has been fastened down securely, one way or another. Illya, step outside, and bring Garnet in."

When this was accomplished, Garnet was given the bull-horn. "Kim?" she said, her hesitant voice booming back from the corrugated walls of the hangar. "Kim? It's me. Please come out and give yourself up. You can't get away now. They don't want to hurt you. I'll take care of you — I promise...." Her voice caught, and a grotesquely amplified sob echoed around before she released the switch.

She managed to bring herself under control, and her voice was almost steady when she spoke again. "Kim — you can hear me. Please answer me, Kim. They can't give you much longer. Come out and give..." Her amplified voice faded and suddenly it was just her ordinary voice

She looked at the horn. "That's funny," she said. "It just..." She looked up, with a vaguely puzzled expression. "I...I feel funny...."

Napoleon looked at his watch. It had stopped.

He felt a little vague himself, but he wasn't blacking out. He saw a bank of tally lights on a panel wink amber, and then fade and go out. The Energy Damper had been switched on, uncompleted though it was, and its field filled at least the area they were in. But the Theta was not full — they were still alive.

He snapped to Illya, "He must be on the other side. Let's get him."

They took off on slightly wobbly legs and went opposite directions around the big machine. A flying body dropped on Napoleon as he came around the corner, and he went down.

The man must have been waiting on the catwalk, Napoleon realized as he was falling and twisting to one side. He landed on his shoulder, rolled up quickly, and scrambled to his feet. He flipped out his gun and snapped, "Hold it right there!" The DAGGER started to his feet, and Napoleon pulled the trigger, aiming over the man's shoulder. Nothing happened. Instinctively he worked the ejection slide, and pulled the trigger again. The firing pin clicked on another dead cartridge. He worked the slide and the trigger the third time as the man's fist came at him.

He swayed slightly to one side and let it glance harmlessly off his shoulder, and then he hit him over the head with the otherwise useless gun. The DAGGER went down and stayed down.

Napoleon looked around for Illya. The wiry Russian was engaged in hand-to-hand combat with two coveralled technicians, one of whom was attempting to wield a wrench. Napoleon sent his automatic on ahead, and caught the man's wrist with it. The wrench fell, and a moment later the man joined it on the floor as Napoleon hit him with a full body-block.

In a few seconds Illya had taken care of the other one, and stood there breathing heavily. "Let's turn the thing off! It must have been started from somewhere over here."

"With all these switches? It would take an hour just to work each of them. And we don't dare monkey with the controls — it might still go wide open. Do you know what to do with it?"

Illya looked up at the machine. "All right, we leave it alone. But where are the others?"

The sounds of a scuffle were plainly heard now from the area near the door. They sprinted around the end of the machine again and saw Waverly going down under a swarm of technicians. Baldwin was still on his feet, backed up to the wall, laying about him with his cane like a demon. Garnet had picked up a chair, and broke it over one of the backs in the mob around Waverly.

And then Napoleon and Illya were in the thick of the fight. Napoleon couldn't tell exactly who he was fighting, because there were so many of them, but he was able to keep clear of Baldwin, who was shouting something fierce and guttural and swinging his cane like a battle-axe. Garnet had run out of chairs and was poking at the tangle with a table leg. Illya and Waverly swam across his line of sight for a moment every now and then, but most of his attention was taken up with hitting and being hit by an apparently inexhaustible supply of total strangers, most of whom wore dirty overalls.

The field of the Energy Damper prevented use of firearms or any other specialized weapon which used energy transformation to power it. Apparently the field was not large after all — with a small corner of his mind Napoleon realized the overhead lights were still on. But they were near the coil.... Of course, he remembered as he picked up another individual and threw him at two more, Keldur said the last stage wasn't connected yet. A good thing, too. This was enough work in the light. The only things unaffected were straight transfers of energy — a fist would still move a jaw a certain distance when impacting properly.

And there were one or two knives glinting under the harsh lights — they worked just as well, too. Napoleon and Illya were well-trained in the roughest schools of hand-to-hand fighting, but the weight of numbers just about evened the odds.

Even in the biggest part of the fight, a corner of Napoleon's mind continued to talk idly to itself. He remembered the cabinet Keldur had ducked behind just a minute or so before the machine had gone on, and he considered how far it was from the far side of the Energy Damper, where he must have turned it on, because they hadn't seen him on this side. But suppose the simple on-off control was not built on to the machine at all? He might be able to find it. He flattened one more opponent, and looked around. Illya and Waverly were still doing all right, and Baldwin had moved away from the wall toward the center of things, balancing on his good leg and shouting "A'mhorfhaich!" every time he connected.

Napoleon broke away and ran for the cabinet. He could recognize it by the gouge Waverly's slug had left in the side. It was about two feet from the wall, and a bit snug for anyone less skeletal than Keldur, but Napoleon made it. He felt his way along, and then ahead he saw a small box stuck on the back of an equipment rack. It had a red insignia on it — the picture of a dagger. He lifted the lid.

Inside there was a closed knife switch. Mentally crossing his fingers, he jerked it open.

Suddenly there was a fusillade of explosions, and shouts of surprise from the other side of the rack. He forced himself past another rack to a corner, and found a little ladder leading up to the roof of the office area. He ran up it like a cat and leaped lightly from the roof to land beside Illya.

"Hi. I found the off switch."

"Good. Here's Keldur," Illya said, holding up a limp figure. "He wouldn't come quietly. Chernik had a knife — he got it returned to him, and did not survive it. Holt may live; I think he has a concussion. I think we taught them a lesson."

"So I see. What were those things that sounded like shots?"

"I was about to ask you. Did you..."

Waverly's voice cut across their conversation. "Clear the building and drag our prisoners out with you. Whatever went off has started a fire."

Napoleon snapped his fingers. Of course. The rounds he had fired after the machine had been switched on had finally detonated when the field had collapsed.

For the next few minutes he was busy dragging prisoners out through the one available door. The flames were climbing, licking around the framework of the flimsy building and catching the scaffolding around the machine.

Once outside, Waverly used his transceiver to make a rush call for the local fire department, but they might not arrive in time to save the machine. The flames were visible through the door, and were spreading.