HISTORY REPEATS-8
774 Words
SOMETHING CAME TWISTING forward to hit the doorframe, it dropped just inside the doorjamb. Buregarde leaped, snapped at the thing and caught it in midair, snapped his head in a vicious shake and sent it whirling back outside again before it could be identified. The dog sunfished and landed on all four. Then the thing went off with a dull pouf! outside. There was a gentle flash of quick light that was smothered by a billow of smoke. Buregarde leaped into the cloud and disappeared. There was a hoarse shriek and the mad scrabble of dog-claws on the hard floor, the sound of a heavy thud, and the angry snarl of a dog with its teeth fastened into something soft. Then there was the fast patter of dog-feet and Buregarde came around the door on a dead run, sliding side-wise to carom off the opened door into safety just as a pencil-ray flicked to follow him.
“Got him,” said the dog in a satisfied tone. “That’s one!”
He took his post by the doorframe again, the tip of his nose just outside. There was a consultation out there in the hallway, at which Buregarde called, “Make a wild rush for us!”
Miss Lewis said, “What are we going to do?”
“Fight it out,” said Peter. “They can’t win so long as we’re alive now. I’ve got my crew on its way in a dead run, and if we make enough noise, some of His Excellency’s Peacemakers will step in and demand their cut of the finances.” He grinned. “How much are you worth, Miss Lewis?”
She shuddered. “I don’t know how much father would pay—”
“Hit ‘em low, Peter!” came Buregarde’s snarl.
Three of them came in a-slant, bounced shoulders against the opened door, caught their bearings and hell was out for noon. Buregarde caught the first with a s***h at the throat; they went down in a mad whirl of dog and thug, paws, tail, arms, legs and a spurt of blood. The second flicked his pencil-ray at Peter, its capsule charge faded to a mere sting before it cut into him. The third aimed a kick at the struggling dog. Vanessa Lewis snatched a box from the bureau and hurled it at the second. Peter thumbed his pencil-ray and winged the third man in the biceps. Buregarde leaped for the second man’s gun hand and closed on it as the hurled box opened and scatter-shotted his face with bric-a-brac. The man with the bloody throat flailed out and caught Peter by the ankle. Peter stomped his face with his other heel. Miss Lewis picked up the table lamp and with a single motion turned off the light and finished felling the one with the ray-burned shoulder.
Buregarde dropped from the second man’s wrist and crouched to spring. The man cowered back, his good arm covering his throat and his other arm hanging limp. He mouthed fright-noises in some tongue native to some star a thousand light-years across the galaxy.
Coldly, Peter stepped forward and belted him in the plexus.
“Now,” he said calmly, “we shall vacate the premises!”
They went side by side, facing slightly outward, Buregarde between them and slightly ahead. “We’re coming out!” called the dog. “Three Barbarians from Terra!”
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* * * *
DOWN ON THE DARK STREET, they met their mercenary again. He eyed them sourly. “I see you were, in a sense, successful.”
Peter Hawley faced the mercenary. “We were successful and would you like to make something of it?”
“I’m going to have to arrest you, you know.”
“You’ll lose an arm trying!” snapped the dog.
“There’s murder been committed tonight,” said His Excellency’s Peacemaker. “The Peace of Xanabar has been disturbed.”
“Why you chiseling crook, there’s been kidnaping tonight, and—”
“I’m afraid that I shall have to ask that the young lady produce her passport,” said the mercenary. “Otherwise she’s in Xanabar Citadel illegally.”
Buregarde said, “Hit him low, Peter. Here come the boys.”
“No!”
“Just once—for fun?”
“No. I want our money-grubbing Peacekeeper to carry a message to His Excellency. I want His Excellency to read some Terrestrial History. Once upon a time there was a place called the Byzantine Empire that laid across the trade routes. The upper crust of people used to serve the Presence of God in a golden throne whilst their underlings dealt in human slaves and procured comely concubines for the emperor; their policemen took bribes and human life was cheap. And when Byzantium fell, all the world was forced to seek a new trade route. So tell His Excellency that he’d better clean up his own foul mess, or some barbarians will clean it up for him.”
“And that,” said Buregarde, “goes for your dad-ratted cat!”
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