J. F. Bone, page 19
“Where do we go now, Doc?” Ramah asked as we pulled away from the last barricade, past the people streaming away from the barriers that had paralyzed the dome.
“To Khanad Smith’s,” I said. A murmur answered me. By now the prowler was surrounded by a half dozen ‘breeds we had picked up at the various barricades, all members of the Union Council.
“He has been a friend of ours,” Ramah said. “Why him?”
“He’s the one who’s been warehousing tonocaine in this dome,” I said. My voice was flat. A muttered growl answered me. If Khanad was a pusher, he was a traitor to them all. They weren’t so far removed from native customs that they didn’t know what to do with traitors.
I pulled the prowler to a stop in front of Khanad’s place, and burst into the shop with a half dozen ‘breeds at my heels. I was thinking that after this day’s work was over, I’d have no choice but to resign from the Police. I wasn’t behaving like a cop. I was setting my private ideas of justice before the law. Neither conscience nor decency would allow me to continue.
Smittie was behind the counter when he saw me come in and his face revealed everything. Guilt was written all over him.
“It wasn’t my doing, Doc,” he screamed. “I didn’t want to handle the stuff! Dawson made me!” I didn’t answer him. I just reached out, jerked him across the counter and handed him over to the ‘breeds. I had a peculiarly ambivalent feeling that had nothing to do with my actions; regret that I did not have the desire to turn him over to the law, satisfaction that he would get the sort of justice he deserved, and shame that I felt so right about what I was doing. Smittie looked into the merciless faces around him and screamed. My ambivalence dissolved into pity. “No,” I said. “You can’t do this. He belongs to the law. We cannot judge. Save him and give him to Chief Marlin.”
Ramah held me back. “This is our affair, Doc. Not yours. Stay out and don’t interfere.”
I shook him off. “I can’t do it,” I said. “Justice is for the law to decide, not for me. I can’t let you harm him.”
“You cannot stop us. Our justice is as old as yours. We, too, have our laws and he has violated them. He knows the penalty. That is why he is screaming.” Sick to my stomach, I watched them drag Smittie outside, and presently the screaming stopped.
Ramah came back into the shop. There was blood on his hands. “He talked,” Ramah said coldly. “Your enemy Dawson is in your office. He knew you were in the dome, but he didn’t know where. He’s waiting for you. He wants to kill you.” Ramah paused and then changed the subject. “In the back of this shop are others who work with the drug that steals men’s souls.” He eyed me with an odd expression of embarrassment and frustration on his face. “We did not kill Smith as we should have done,” he said. “He still lives. Two of our men are taking him to the police. We could not let you feel badly about us.”
I found Smittie’s Kelly by the cash box and checked it over: I couldn’t trust myself to look at Ramah at that moment. He and the others had done something ‘breeds had probably never done before. They had not killed their own snake. They had given him to the law. “How about the others who work here?” I said, and let the question hang between us.
Ramah nodded. “These, too, will be turned over to the police.”
I sighed, not from relief but because I was very tired. It was as though some unseen hand had loosened the strings holding me together. I sat down and let weariness flow out of me. I felt spent.
But the weariness vanished almost as quickly as it had come. There were still many things to do, and there was still John Dawson. The thought of him made my pulse pound. I opened the door to the rear of Smittie’s shop. One sniff was enough. There was tonocaine in there all right. I closed the door quickly. The infinitely small amount of drug needed to produce odor wouldn’t hurt, but there might be more powder in the air than the minimum. We would need respirators before going into that part of the building. I found one next to where Smittie’s Kelly had lain, and Ramah located a couple more on the shelves. He and another man put them on. The three of us went into the back where a couple of protective suited men wearing respirators were breaking up canisters of tonocaine powder into smaller packages. They didn’t give any trouble at all when they saw our Kellys, but came quickly and let themselves be tied without making a struggle. Then I called Marlin on the car radio and told him what had happened. He promised a squad of police as soon as possible, and told me that he’d set the militia on guard duty in the Hub, but wasn’t using them in the dome area.
“Just so long as the ‘breeds don’t come down to city center,” he said, “things’ll be all right.”
“You’d better keep an eye out for two of them,” I said. “They’ll be escorting a third who’ll be Khanad Smith. Treat those men with care. They’re on our side.” I looked at Ramah.
“Good,” Marlin said. “I’ll send a car to pick them up. Just don’t send any more down this way for awhile. There’s still a lot of confusion here.”
He didn’t say so in that many words, but I got the idea that he was as dubious about the undisciplined, trigger-happy civilian levies as I was. As long as they stayed in the Hub, and as long as Marlin kept an eye on them, things wouldn’t get out of control. I told Ramah the score and got a promise to keep his people out of the Hub area until Marlin got the amateurs disarmed.
I posted a guard over our prisoners and then I went after Dawson. I didn’t take a direct route. If Dawson had half a brain, he’d be watching the street and a direct approach would be suicide. Strategy was needed, so I took Ramah and another ‘breed aside and told them what I wanted.
Ramah smiled grimly. “I hope,” he said, “that you are as careful about serving your law as you were about us serving it.” His white teeth gleamed in the bronze of his face as he smiled at me.
It caught me by surprise. For the first time I wondered just what I was going to do with Dawson. I wanted to kill him, and God knows, the man deserved to die. But if I killed, I would be doing the same thing I had condemned in the ‘breeds. I shook my head. “I will not kill him unless it is necessary.”
He nodded.
I patted Ramah on the back and sent the two of them on their way. They started walking down the street while I headed for the 10th Street Gate. When they got close enough they’d give me covering fire to distract Dawson’s attention. The way we had timed it, I had five minutes to get to the back of my clinic and get inside.
The gate guard recognized me and let me into the walkway on top of the wall that ran past my back window. I hurried down the hundred meters that separated the window from the gate. It took a little time before I found the proper casement, as it was one of many that were almost exactly alike, but I finally recognized it just as blaster bolts began exploding in front of the building. I grinned as I jimmied the window open with an iron I had taken from the prowler. Any sound I made couldn’t possibly be heard above the covering fire that Ramah and his companion were laying down.
I pushed the window cautiously aside and slid silently over the sill. Kelly in hand, I opened the wardroom door and moved toward the front offices, my feet soundless on the resilient flooring. I flinched and ducked behind the doorway to the office as the asthmatic cough of a blaster echoed through the half open door. The faint explosion of the bolt was followed by a grunt of satisfaction. In the silence that I followed I could hear a metallic voice. For a moment I didn’t recognize that it was mine until I heard the words. It was my Fourth Street speech being rebroadcast from the Communications Center in the Hub. I sounded worse with repetition.
I looked into the room. Dawson was standing well back of the opening, staring out of the shattered front window, a Mark VII in his hands. He was, alert and tense-keyed to the breaking point. Beside him on my desk was a portable two-way communicator endlessly dinning my voice into the quiet of the room. It stopped finally, and Marlin came on with a promise of immunity to all those who would do as I asked and go home.
Dawson kept looking out of the window. “Come on out, you yellow dog!” he yelled into the street, “and I’ll burn you like I did your pal.”
“Don’t move, John,” I said quietly.
He stiffened as though he had been shot, but he didn’t turn around.
“Easy, John—slow,” I said. “Toss your Kelly out of the window.”
“Williams!” he gritted, “I should have known this was a diversion.” I watched the blaster leave his hands and arc toward the street.
“Steady now,” I said, as I came up behind him and felt his sleeves and clothing for more weapons.
That was a mistake. I should have made him lean against the wall. As it was, I was caught flat-footed. He spun with blinding speed, knocking my Kelly from my grasp before I could fire. Everything slowed down to a crawl for the next split second. I watched my gun slowly spin through the open window and disappear as I blocked his grab for my arm, smashed him across the face, and wrenched free of his grip.
We stood facing each other, and the communicator on the desk swung into my speech again. Dawson picked the thing up and threw it at me. I ducked and it caromed off the wall in a shower of shattered plastic. Dawson followed the communicator plunging recklessly toward me. I sidestepped and pushed him away. He hit the wall and scrambled for footing, glaring at me and panting with hate.
“I was going to burn you for what you did to me. You set me up, you dirty fink,” he said in a voice like ice. “But this is better. Now I’m going to break you apart before I kick the life out of you—you goddam nark!” He never took his eyes off me. I suppose he was remembering the time I had dropped my eyes from his that day we met long ago, and he figured it gave him a psychological edge. I laughed at him.
That did it. His control snapped and I ducked barely in time as his left hand whistled through the space occupied by my head a split second before. I brought the edge of my right hand down across his neck—hitting his ear as he ducked—blocked a knee driving at my groin, caught a blasting right under my ribs that staggered me, and hit him squarely on the mouth with a right of my own.
He staggered back and spat out a broken tooth. We looked at each other with naked hate, breathing a little deeper after that brief test of speed and strength. The exchange was about even. I felt a queer sort of satisfaction that it had come to this. It wouldn’t have been right any other way.
I started it this time. I threw a punch at his head and he picked my hand out of the air and pivoted to throw me. I blocked automatically, wondering at his clumsiness. Obviously he wasn’t a wrestler. The bones in my hand grated on each other as he applied crushing pressure. I stabbed at his brachial plexus with stiff fingers, and he howled as his grip loosened. I wrenched free and kicked him in the thigh as he backed and sidestepped, flexing his numb arm
“Smart guy,” he growled softly. He set himself and came at me again. I helped him. I was lying on my back as he spun through the air and crashed into the far wall of the room with an impact that shook the solid plastic. He scrambled to his feet apparently as active as ever as I finished the roll and stood facing him. I couldn’t believe he was still on his feet. The impact would have knocked the brains out of a normal man, but it only served to infuriate Dawson. He smashed at me with iron fists that had lost nothing of their power. The fury of his attack drove me backward across the room. He caught me with a savage right to the face that sent me staggering across the floor half stunned. I blocked, slipped and ducked under the punishing blows that rained on my face and body. Pinwheels of color flashed before my eyes. I felt a rib snap as his foot landed. I blocked another kick to the groin and stamped on his left instep. His face turned white with pain and for a moment his guard dropped. I smashed him across the face with two full armed blows that staggered him and drove him back across the room.
We drew deep sobbing breaths as we faced each other. He threw an office chair at me and I ducked. The chair sailed over my head and smashed against the wall. He wrenched the leg off another and came at me swinging it like a club. This was easy. I parried, bent and twisted and the club was in my hands and Dawson was on the floor. I threw the chair leg at his head. It missed. I stamped at his face and found myself on my back with Dawson on top. I bucked him off and we both came to our feet again. I noticed that he wasn’t as quick as he was earlier. He limped and didn’t get the same power into his blows as we came together again. That was his weakness if he had any—he relied on his fists too much!
I’ve heard it said that anyone who was good enough to pass the instructor’s course in unarmed combat in the Service could kill the best boxer who ever lived. The guy who said that should have met Dawson. I still had doubts about even denting him, let alone killing him. My face was puffed and bleeding, and I ached from head to foot. Dawson couldn’t have been in much better shape, but he seemed faster and stronger than I—and we had started about even.
His left connected and I went down. I scrambled away from his driving foot, staggered to my feet, and he knocked me down again. He stepped forward, his face a bloody grinning mask of victory and drove the heel of his damaged left foot at my face.
I saw the opening, and moved with all the speed I had left in me. I caught his right ankle with the instep of my right foot and drove my left foot at his right knee. The blow was perfectly timed and I felt a thrill of vicious pleasure as his knee joint gave way. Dawson screamed and fell. He writhed on the floor as I stumbled wearily to my feet, clutching the doorframe for support, holding myself erect, trying to shake some sense into my battered brain.
Dawson crawled toward me, dragging his broken leg. I stepped aside and he moaned with frustration when he found he couldn’t reach me. Things cleared a little, the room stopped spinning, and I could feel my strength come back. Dawson propped himself on his hands and looked at me with blind hate. He was done for and he knew it. But he didn’t quit. Whatever drove that rubbery body kept him going until he couldn’t move. He expected no mercy and I gave him none.
I finished him as cleanly as I could and as quickly as his indomitable will would let me. I wanted no more fighting. Every breath I took was agony as the broken ribs grated in my chest. I didn’t even feel happy about having won. I had worked my hatred until there wasn’t any more. I looked down at my handiwork. Dawson was alive, but as a fighting man he was finished.
So was I. My stomach heaved and I was violently sick. I started shouting into the silence of the room. The walls tilted and began spinning away from me down a long, black tunnel.
* * *
CHAPTER XX
« ^ »
Sofra had my head pillowed on her lap and was doing things to it with a wet cloth when I came into the light again. I didn’t know how she had gotten here, but I was glad to see her. Outside of a smudge on one cheekbone she didn’t seem worse for wear. My split lips twisted into a tired smile as I saw her face bending over mine.
She made a gasping sound of relief as she saw my eyes open. “Oh, my dear—my dear—why did you fight that terrible man?” she murmured. She kept on making soft noises as she wiped the blood away.
Behind her were a lot of people, cops, ‘breeds, strangers in Headquarters uniform, Marlin, Ramah, and Lantham. I felt a surge of relief at the sight of Ramah. At least he wasn’t the one Dawson had shot. I didn’t know the other fellow; so it didn’t affect me other than cerebrally. But Lantham; I didn’t expect him, and the sight of his lean gray figure left me speechless. He grinned down at me.
“A fine job, Williams,” he said. “You’re a credit to the Force.” He sounded fatherly again. He went on at some length but I didn’t hear anything he said—it was something about cleanup, heroism, and snatches of words and phrases that didn’t add up. I sighed and wiggled my head into a more comfortable position on Sofra’s lap.
“I’ll talk to you later,” Lantham said, finally seeing what the score was. I mumbled some reply and turned back to the business at hand. We were as alone as though we were in the middle of the desert. The people milling around us simply didn’t exist. Two busy cops, sparing a second to grin at us, cleared space for a couple of litter bearers who loaded Dawson on a stretcher and carried him out. He was still breathing, and he was tough enough to recover. He’d live to spend a long time in rehabilitation, and when he came out he would be John Dawson only in name.
A gleam of metal winked at me from under the edge of the overturned desk. I gestured at it with a feeble hand and Sofra bent over obligingly and retrieved it for me. She handed me the crumbled square of metal. It was Dawson’s notecase. I remembered it with an odd clarity. He’d used it when he wrote the log of that one and only night we worked as a team. Dawson had been inordinately proud of that square of platinum. He’d waved it at me, fishing for a question which I never asked. As I held it in my hands, I couldn’t help thinking that it had seen better days. It was useless except perhaps as a souvenir. I turned it over in my hand and a slip of paper dropped out of a hollow place behind the torn inner cover. It fluttered to the floor. I picked it up. It was a personal memento, a signed facsimile letter of appreciation and recommendation. I grimaced. It was inconceivable to me that anyone would think highly of Dawson. Curiously I looked at the signature and got the surprise of my life. It read John A. Lantham, Chief Inspector. I read the few lines of voicewrite print on its white surface. Lantham had obviously had a high regard for Dawson. I wondered why he thought Dawson was so wonderful. Lantham slid a little in my esteem. Certainly he wasn’t a good judge of character if he thought a sadist was outstanding. Things started slipping away once more and I headed toward darkness.
