New Lensman Part 18

[What happened?]

[I don't rightly know,] Holt answered. [A couple of maintenance men came in about half an hour ago and were poking around downstairs. Just a minute ago a bunch of security men in armor came in. One of the maintenance men came up the ramp, saw them and started shooting. Charlie got hit. Not bad.

Then the alarms went off. One of the things they hauled in must have been a bottle of V2. Then the fire extinguisher system went off. Everybody's downstairs. There's been a lot of shooting down there. I put a mask on Charlie and called an ambulance.] As he finished he saw an officer come up the ramp.

'Did you get them?' Holt asked.

'Yeah,' the officer said. 'Both of them. Where's your visiphone? You've got this place so s.h.i.+elded I can't use my suit radio.'

Before Holt could answer, Larry interrupted with the thought that he wanted to contact the officer. Holt asked the man over and Larry made the transfer. The man was the sergeant in charge of the group. The sergeant went back down the ramp while Holt made his report for him to Security's control center.

Using the officer's eyes, Larry looked around. At the foot of the ramp a drum that had fallen off a hand cart immediately caught his eye. The label on the side of the drum said 'Special Ferrous Compound'. Ferrous - Iron - Generators. The a.s.sociation was that fast. They checked the hopper of the emergency power generator. Instead of little iron ingots, it was filled with green powder.

[Find out if there's any way to keep the generator from turning on. Fast! There may be a power failure at any moment, and when there is, the hopper will explode like a bomb.] Larry instructed the sergeant. Then he transferred to Holt.

Holt didn't know how to keep the generator from turning on when the power went off but he pointed out that there were two generators downstairs. [There's so much duplicate gear down there that we only have a repairman during the prime s.h.i.+ft, that's 0800 to 1700.]

[Call him. Now!]

[I'll try to find his name,] Holt answered.

Larry turned to the sergeant. [Any luck?]

[There are a bunch of leads that go into an armored cable. The cable goes into the floor and disappears. I don't dare cut the leads because if I cut the wrong one first, the generator may start.]

[There's a second generator around here somewhere. Find it, and while we're trying to get some help, try to clean the powder out of the hoppers. Use a vacuum cleaner,] Larry instructed.

Holt was still looking for a name, so Larry Lensed Robert Niven of Maintenance. Niven was at home watching late television. Niven knew the maintenance man. Larry had no way of reaching him so Niven made the phone call.

Larry went back to the sergeant at Copernicus Control. [Call the control center and find out the location of the power substation that supplies Copernicus Control. Get some guards over there.]

'Lieutenant?' [There's also an apartment ...]

'Lieutenant?'

Larry suddenly realized that someone was talking to him. The driver of the transporter. 'What?'

Larry asked.

'This is the hotel. Didn't you say you wanted to get off here?' the driver asked.

'No,' Larry answered. 'Would you mind driving me over to City Hall instead?'

The driver pulled out of line, around the transporter that had brought the first suspect into the Dome, waved, and called, 'I'm going on ahead.'

That reminded Larry and he Lensed Officer Bratmon. [What's happening?]

[He made a stop at an apartment complex, got something out of their mechanical room and loaded it into his transporter.] Officer Bratmon said. [He's headed toward the south end of town now. I can't figure out where yet.]

[Does he know you're following him?]

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[I doubt it.]

[Got your armor on yet?]

[No,] the officer answered.

[Get it on, even if you have to park to do it. It isn't doing any good on the floor back there and we've already lost too many good officers.]

There was a slight glow of pride from the officer and he stopped to hurriedly carry out Larry's order.

Larry checked Niven. [Have you found your man yet?]

[Yes,] Niven answered. [I got him out of bed. He's calling Copernicus Control right now.]

[Good. Thank you.]

Larry went back to the sergeant at Copernicus Control. [Found out where the power substation is?]

[Yes,] the sergeant answered. [There are four men on their way over there right now. They also told me about the apartment. Two men are heading over...]

The visiphone rang and Holt answered. It was the repair man. Through Holt, Larry probed for the man but somehow he couldn't contact his mind. So Larry acted as a relay between Holt and the sergeant. Holt acted as the ears of the trio and asked questions while the sergeant acted as the eyes and hands. Between the three of them they found the proper leads and pulled them. Then suddenly the repairman came in directly. He described to the officer how to clear out the hoppers.

The lights went out. [It's all right, Mr. McQueen. When you told me that the power was going off, I put everything in the permanent storage mode. When the power comes back on, we'll get back on the air in half a ... agh!] Holt disappeared from the linkage.

[What happened?] Larry asked.

[I don't know,] the sergeant answered.

'Lieutenant, we're here,' the driver announced.

[I'll be back in a minute. Can you find out?] Larry asked. [Yes, I think so.]

Larry broke contact. Holding three minds together, even for a few minutes, was now a tremendous strain. The day would come when it was only a minor effort but that would be after a lot of practice. Right now he felt as if he had gone through the spin cycle of an automatic washer. He asked the driver to wait for him and hurried into the City Hall as fast as he could go without running into a wall. [Hanovich?] he called ahead. [I need a suit of armor.]

Hanovich indicated where he could get the armor. 'While he did so, the sergeant at Copernicus Control called in and reported. There was a flurry of action as the control center dispatched ambulances and requested an emergency repair crew from Maintenance. Larry listened in through Hanovich.

Moments later one of the officers sent to the power substation reported in. They had arrived just as the agent there set off an explosive charge on the side of the main transformer for the Copernicus Control area. The man had been shot in the attempt to capture him. They needed an ambulance. Larry mentioned the possibility of suicide to Hanovich, who warned the officers.

'I'll go in with him,' one officer said. 'He isn't conscious right now, and by the time he is, we'll have him in new clothes and in the prison ward - if he survives.'

The control center asked the Maintenance dispatcher to send out another repair team to look at the power sub-station to see what they could do. The dispatcher did so and started calling in people from the day s.h.i.+ft.

The officers who had been sent to the apartment that the suspect from Customs had phoned, reported that they found two people dead in the apartment, apparently the residents, and a hole cut through the floor into a ventilation duct. There was a cylinder, apparently of V2, being fed into the duct. They turned it off.

In the darkness that covered that portion of Copernicus when the substation went out, they had missed the person who had remained behind in the apartment.

Larry checked with Officer Bratmon at the south end of Copernicus.

[He's parked in front of a public visiphone booth, waiting,] Officer Bratmon answered. [He keeps looking at his wrist watch.]

Larry looked at his wrist.w.a.tch. What had the Customs officer said? That s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p should have been in about midnight. The attack had occurred about 00:15, which would have given the liner time to get in. Larry Lensed the Customs officer. [Did that liner ever get in?]

[No.1 haven't seen it.]

[Thanks,] Larry replied, and Lensed k.n.o.bos.

[What happened to that s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p?]

[I just received a report on it,] k.n.o.bos answered. [It was delayed while they removed an atomic device from it. There were five people involved. Four are prisoners, one is dead. The prisoners are hired guns, nothing else. In spite of your warning, our man wasn't fast enough to get the 6566

leader of the group.]

[Is the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p still at LA s.p.a.ceport?] Larry asked.

[Yes.]

[Thanks. Goodbye.]

Now the pattern was clear. Two groups of agents had come in on previous flights. The attack was planned for after the last group came in with an atomic weapon. The first group was to take out Copernicus Control. The second was to do - what? He didn't know yet. Obviously they were waiting for orders to go ahead. Group three was to bring in the bomb, right through Customs, while Security struggled with the attack on Copernicus Control. So would they link up for the second attack? Possibly. Possibly not. Team one and two communicated via the man in the apartment. After the attack he left the apartment, probably to set up a new command post and wait until everyone checked in. That way he could evaluate how effective the attack was. Dependent on that, he would set up a second, and/or third attack. OK, he'll soon know that we got most of the third team, those involved in the attack on Copernicus Control. He knows by now we got part the second team as they came through Customs. And he'll soon know that we got the third team. That means he'll turn loose the second attack as soon as possible, whatever it is.

QX, as Tom says; we've got one man from the second team covered. We can work back to the new command post. Find out where the other members are located and cover them.

Larry glanced at his watch again. 00:20. He Lensed a call to Officer Bratmon to get the location of the public visiphone where the suspect was waiting, and Lensed the information to Hanovich so he could have the call traced when it came. Then, on a hunch, he went out to the transporter waiting outside City Hall and told the driver to head north.

While traveling north he thought back to his conversation with the second suspect, Horst. Horst had had the strongest reactions to both Copernicus Control and the defenses controlled by Copernicus Control. That would fit. The defense batteries had been moved out along the rim of the crater so they weren't covered by the Rodebush-Bergenholm field. That meant to the north and south of the city. Now would be a good time to examine what impact that had on their vulnerability to attack.

He Lensed Hanovich. [What's our status?]

[The first ambulance is at Copernicus Control. They're working on the personnel out there. We're waiting for the rest of the people to arrive,] Hanovich answered.

[I've got some questions about the defense batteries that Copernicus Control is supposed to handle. Who can help me?]

[I might be able to do that,] Hanovich answered. [What are the questions?]

[How are they controlled?] Larry asked.

[From Copernicus Control, over control lines to the batteries.]

[Are there any auxiliary control centers for the batteries?]

[Yes, but they're locked, sealed and s.h.i.+elded like a bank vault. Only the qualified crews can get in and then only if the secondary locks are unsealed by Copernicus Control.]

[Is there any way to foul up the control lines?]

[That's a good point,] Hanovich replied. [Normally, I'd say no. But with the new installations going in, there are some sections that haven't been "hardened" yet. One of the first things that Ted Johnstone insisted on was to build the new sites and lay lines out to them. But there are some sections of the control line that can't be buried under the specified 20 feet of reinforced concrete yet. Those areas are under guard and they've got an alarm system monitoring the line.]

[How many spots on the control line are being guarded?]

[Four.]

[Are the guards in armor?]

[No.]

[Get them in armor as fast as you can,] Larry ordered. [Alert them that trouble's coming. Where's the most critical point on the control line to the north?]

Hanovich called the points up on a plate at the control center and gave him the location.

[As long as you have them, why don't you give me all the locations?] Larry asked. Hanovich complied.

The robot central reported a call to the visiphone in the southern section of Copernicus. It came from a public visiphone in the Dome.

[How many other phone calls from that phone in the last five minutes?] Larry asked.

Hanovich inquired and was told that there had been only one call and it was to a location in northern Copernicus. The location was somewhere behind Larry.

[Can you catch the caller?] Larry asked.

[No. Not unless he waits for us.]

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Larry switched over to Officer Bratmon.

[What happened?] Larry asked the officer.

[The phone rang. He answered. Listened a couple seconds and now he's leaving.]

[My current guess is that he's going to try to disrupt the control lines between Copernicus Control and the blaster batteries.] Larry said, and gave him the two locations in his vicinity.

[They're both down the pa.s.sage to the south exit,] Officer Bratmon replied. [We'll see if you're right in a couple minutes.]

[Right. Check in with Hanovich,] Larry ordered. [He'll have to run our backup if we goof.]

Larry's driver picked up the pa.s.sage to the north exit, a wide tunnel that ran over 10 miles out to the northern-most exit from Copernicus. Two miles along the tunnel they reached the tube that bridged the slot Dr. Kelvin had only finished cutting that afternoon. The driver stopped and Larry got out. The guard was there, behind Larry with a high-power rifle, almost as Larry's foot hit the ground.

'Freeze!' he commanded. 'Can I help you?'

'Yes,' Larry said. 'My name is McQueen. I'm here to help you. Check with Hanovich.'