The Rival Rigelians

Mike Dean hurried over to the back entrance, held his gun at the ready and flung the door open. There was nobody beyond. He hurried through into the corridor.

Behind him, Lange scurried to the opposite door, twisted the key. He opened the portal wide.

“He’s in here! He was just in here!” he screamed.

Two men at arms hurried in, guns in hand. They stared at the almost nude secretary.

Lange said shrilly, “He went that way.” He pointed excitedly. “He stole all my clothes. He went through there.”

More men crowded into the room. Several followed the pointing Lange’s directions, hurrying after the escaping tycoon.

Presbyter Doul came in, his eyes sweeping the office. They lit on the open safe. They came back to the secretary.

“It would seem that the vultures already gather,” the monk murmured.

“No,” Lange protested. “It wasn’t me. It was him. But he took only some gold crowns. Several purses of them. Everything else is still there.”

“It had better be,” Doul muttered, heading for the safe.

Mike Dean darted down a narrow alleyway, cobblestones under his feet. This town resembled nothing so much as a scene of a medieval city, in the historical Tri-Di cinema back on Earth. He had the feeling of being an actor in a third rate production.

He could hear a scrambling of feet behind him, and turned and winged three shots back. The scrambling stopped. Undoubtedly, the other had slipped into the shelter of a doorway.

Dean hurried on.

He was weighing chances in the back of his mind even as he devoted most of his thoughts to the immediate problem of staying alive. His chances didn’t weigh up to much. He had been a fool. He and Louis Rosetti both. They should have allowed for this contingency. Should have figured out some sort of foolproof getaway and hideaway for just such an emergency. They should have realized that you could push opponents just so far, no further.

He rounded a corner. And heard feet behind him again.

Zen! If he had just had another twenty-four hours or so for preparation. He could have gotten to his yacht. It was as fast as anything in any navy on Genoa. He could have gotten to the Eastern continent and to the protection of Amschel Mayer and Jerry Kennedy. They had their continent sewed up to an extent far and beyond what Dean and Rosetti had been able to establish here.

For the nonce he seemed to have shaken his pursuers. They weren’t as many as all that, probably. The others were out to get him, true enough, but even more important, they were out to take his properties and undoubtedly were more concerned for them than for his hide.

He didn’t dare attempt to secure transportation. Not even a horse. He hurried into another alley, hoping that his sense of direction wasn’t playing him false.

Finally, he emerged from a narrow street to confront the large building which was his immediate goal. His eyes darted up and down. The square before him was largely empty. He pushed the gun into his belt, beneath the jerkin he had appropriated from Lange and strolled across, taking on as careless an attitude as he could muster, and trying to keep from breathing in his physical exhaustion in such wise as to draw attention.

He entered the front portals of the building, walked past the receptionist nurse, who gave him no more than a glance, when he projected the air of someone who knew where he was going.

Mike Dean had been here before. He proceeded down the hospital corridor as fast as he could without drawing undue attention.

He didn’t bother to knock at her door. He pushed his way through. The nurse at the desk there recognized him and made a standard greeting, but he muttered at her and opened the door to the inner sanctum.

Natalie Wieliczka looked up, surprised at the unheralded intrusion. For a moment she stared. “Mike,” she said. “What are you doing in those clothes? I’m used to you as quite the dandy.”

Mike Dean went to the window and stared out at the street. He snapped: “Louis is dead.”

“What!”

He looked back at her. “Everything has gone to pot, Natalie. The barons and the Temple have united. They’re out to get us all. I think I was able to send a message through to Buchwald and MacDonald. We’ve got to get out of here, soonest. Have you got a shooter?”

“Me? A gun?” She was still staring, unbelieving.

“Here.” He brought the small weapon he had taken from Lange from his pocket and tossed it to her. She grabbed, fumbled, stared down at it.

“Why, why…”

“Come on,” he said urgently. “Let’s get going.”

“But, but Mike. What’s the charge against us?” She was aghast.

He looked at her. “Witchcraft.”

She closed her eyes and shuddered. “I thought we had wiped that accusation out.”

“Well, the Temple’s revived it, evidently. They got Louis Rosetti, and they’re after me. Obviously, you’d be next. Those Temple monks aren’t flats, they’ve put two and two together and figured out what’s happened to a lot of the power they used to have. Come on, Natalie, we’ve got to try and get out of this city, and find some way to get to a ship.”