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make the final checks that the Regent has ordered, then all of you stand ready
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to be transferred to the laboratories of the omnipotent Regent!"
The Humans, meanwhile, had been absorbing what Cabell told them. Lisa found a
moment in which to chuckle at the irony. Apparently Cabell had learned more
than just science in his dealings with Lang, Dr. Penn and the rest, and with
the Human Sentinels.
We've got fifty-skillion bucks worth of taxpayers' money in Robotech
paraphernalia, it occurred to Rick, and now the whole shebang's riding on one
old alien coot talking in pig latin! Somehow, it seemed appropriate.
It was like sending vital battle signals with a child's decoder ring from a
cereal box, but it seemed to have worked. And the remark about the
Regent's laboratories had everyone there determined to escape or die trying;
there were fates worse than death.
Even as the Enforcer guard was delivering his warning, Jean Grant
surreptitiously adjusted a control on the life-signs monitoring equipment.
Oscillators oscillated and alarms buzzed; lights flashed and electronic tones
made urgent warbles.
The Enforcer swung its barrel around. "What's this?"
Jean pretended to be studying the healing devices. "I think their thalmic
excrescences have formed a medullary fistula!" To her former patients she
snapped, "Quick, all of you! Lie back down! Your refraction's stuck in the
optical reciprocator!"
The Enforcers were teetering a little, overwhelmed. "Wh-what are you saying,
female? Explain yourself!"
Jean demonstrated her impatience. "They're having a relapse, you big
worm-in-a-can! Quick, you and your partner go get help! Get the healers! Get
the Regent! Can't you see they're dying?"
Karen was the first to pick up her cue and fall back on the floor moaning.
Lisa gaped at her for an instant, then went into her own pretended fit,
staggering around and twitching exaggeratedly, making some very strange faces.
Rick caught on and flopped to the floor in a gatoring paroxysm; Miriya swooned
onto a treatment couch and began uttering piercing sounds of pain.
The two Enforcers were so nonplussed that for a moment they nearly did turn to
go get help. But they caught themselves and covered the prisoners again.
Stand fast, you! None of your tricks now!"
"Trick? Does this look like a trick?" Jean said, pointing to the
incomprehensible sound and light show of the Haydonite medical apparatus.
And I hope you don't say yes!
The Enforcer stumped over to the machine to have a look for itself, motioning
Jean aside with the gun barrel. She only moved a step or two away, but that
didn't bother the Invid; she was nothing but an unarmed female Human.
The second Enforcer moved up nearby, covering the oddly contorting afflicted
ones just in case they were planning something. Unnoticed, Vince Grant slipped
from sight between two stacks of equipment.
The first Enforcer gazed at the baffling displays of the instruments while the
supposedly relapsed patients drooled, howled like dogs, and went into vigorous
spasms. Jean watched from a step away, her hands behind her back.
"What does all this mean? Explain!" the Invid demanded.
Jean produced one hand so that she could point. "It's all right there on the
middle scanner! See?"
As the thing leaned in for a closer look, she whipped around the
power-delivery cable she had yanked loose and thrust it against the armored
torso. Crackling wreaths of pure energy swathed the thing, sending it into
convulsions. Jean made a silent prayer of thanks that the cable's thick
insulation kept her from being fried as well. Nevertheless, the field
generated by the furious current made her short hair stand on end.
The radiant wrath of it drove her back after only a second or two, though,
forcing her to drop the cable. The Enforcer was still shuddering and lurching;
Jean thought she might have succeeded in mortally wounding the embryolike
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Invid inside, or the systemry of its mecha.
The second Enforcer was angling for a shot at her, careful to keep the
afflicted Sentinels and Max and Wolff in its field of fire. But as it raised
its massive rifle, a hand pulled the pistol from its belt. Vince Grant took a
quick step back and shot the thing straight in the back of the helmet.
Smoke and steam and green goop burst from the gap in the Invid armor,
along with the smell of incinerated tissue and forge-spatterings of molten
alloy. Vince had to dodge quickly as the second guard collapsed backward,
nearly pinning him.
The other captives were all on their feet now, closing in on the fallen
Enforcers. "D'you think they got off an alert?" Max wondered.
"Probably not, but that doesn't mean we're in the clear," Wolff surmised. He
gingerly touched the fallen rifle of the one Jean had zapped; it was warm, but
intact and apparently still functional. He hoisted the rifle onto his
shoulder.
Vince passed his pistol to Rick and took up the other rifle. Lisa took the
zapped guard's handgun before Max could grab it. It was shaped something like
a giant Protoculture staple gun. "Rank Hath Its Privilege, and all that."
She smiled.
Max gave her a lopsided smirk. "Use it in good health, Lisa. Only, let's get
goin'!"
There was universal agreement on that. Rick weighed the bulky Invid sidearm as
he led the way, grateful that the Sentinels had all done familiarization fire
with enemy weapons against such an emergency. He paused in the doorway and
turned to find Lisa a pace behind him, ready to back him up.
They started off down the corridor. At the first corner, Rick came face to
face with Veidt and almost shot him.
"Come. Hurry." Veidt pirouetted and sailed away at high speed, leaving the
others to pound after him. They followed him to a liftfield that bore them up
to the roof of the place.
"How did you know we escaped?" Max demanded as the field drifted him out onto
the sunlit roof landing stage.
"We can keep surveillance on anything that transpires in the Halls of
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