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then we'll have to deal with them some other way."
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"I say we just use the rifles and blast through," the cop said, reaching down
for his.
"I suspect they'd repel any weapons fire. No, I think we just go through and
that's that. These guns are no good once we cross the border anyway, so I say
we just toss 'em."
Jaysu looked out at the station only a half kilometer away. "I could fly over
that thing," she told them.
"And over the bor-der, too."
"You probably could, but the question is, would their auto-mated equipment
target you and shoot you down if you tried? Or could it?" O'Leary was
beginning to wonder about her powers.
"Possibly. Possibly not. I do not know. However, I agree with Har Shamish.
Throw the rifles away. I do not believe that these ahead will be any different
in kind or nature than the others. I simply will not permit them to act
against us."
O'Leary sighed. "I hate to do this, but . . ." He flung the rifle off into the
night. After a moment, Har
Shamish did the same. They were now effectively dependent on the priest-ess,
but they had seen what she could do. O'Leary put the cart in drive and headed
toward the station.
There was no point in driving through to Quislon, since the cart would be
nothing more than a lump there.
He parked it neatly in the parking area, and all three of them got out and
walked toward the gate, which had all sorts of ominous-looking warnings none
of them could read. It also had the universal hex symbol, though, and a twin
cut through the bottom segment a bit to the west of center.
You are here, O'Leary thought. He hoped that it was in-deed Quislon on the
other side. With the hex boundary there and little starlight, what he could
see through and across it could have been just about anywhere.
Neither of the Pyrons were too confident relying on Jaysu's newfound powers,
but they also didn't think they had much choice. And if she was confident of
them, then they had to go along, since she was the reason they were there.
She looked around at the complex before following them up to the passage
through to the border, then caught up to the pair. "How does this power get
out here?" she asked them.
Shamish looked around. "Broadcast is the most common method, but I don't think
these characters would use it. Too paranoid. Underground cable would be my
best guess."
She focused on it for a moment and saw it in her mind's eye, coming down
beside the road, a living snake of flame.
"Let us proceed," she told them, keeping that flow in one corner of her mind.
The way was barred by a tall electrically operated gate. Be-yond it was a
tunnel of sorts, with fencing five meters high going down the suddenly
primitive dirt road on both sides and even across a roof. A second gate was at
the far end, thirty meters farther on, operated, it seemed, by the same set of
controls.
The silver and black officer looked just like all the others, but more
nervous. Still, he didn't appear threatening, and Jaysu felt no direct danger
to any of them from him. He did seem al-most surprised to see them, though, as
if he never would have thought they would try a legitimate exit.
"Papers?"
They handed them over, wondering just what his instruc-tions were.
He looked at them, then at the papers, then back at them. "You are taking
nothing with you that you did not bring into Alkazar?"
"Nothing whatsoever," Har Shamish answered. "Our sole purpose was to reach
Quislon."
"Very well. You understand that these papers are not valid for reentry?"
"Mine most certainly is!" Shamish protested. "However, as it happens, I have
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decided to proceed home after this and so won't be using them. Still, I am
accredited as a diplomat to Alkazar."
"To Kolznar Colony, not to the country proper," the official responded.
"However, as you say, it is moot."
He wrote some-thing on his electric pad, then proceeded to remove several of
the sheets from their papers that had been added when they'd entered, and
handed the papers back. There was a buzzing sound, and the nearest gate slid
back, revealing that last thirty meter gauntlet.
"Proceed," the little bearlike creature said, and they walked through. The
buzzing sound came again, and the gate closed behind them.
It was claustrophobic in the cagelike tunnel, walking in the reflected light.
"I was right," Shamish commented. "One high fence, pas-sive, then a killer
fence in the middle. One more passive will be over here at the other gate."
They reached the second gate, and waited for it to open. And waited. And
waited. ..
"I have a bad feeling about this," O'Leary muttered.
Jaysu did not know where the danger was coming from, but she felt it, and knew
it was time to act. She took hold of that current of living energy she'd
identified and kept track of and mentally pushed against it.
There was a tremendous crackling sound, and sizzling, as if things were
frying, and then all the lights went out and they were totally in the dark,
including her. In fact, she was now completely blind in the conventional
sense, but she could still "see" her companions in other ways, and the sudden
panick-ing little creatures in the building behind them.
The two Pyron weren't blind at all. "Quick! Can you force the gate?" Shamish
called to O'Leary.
"I I
think so," the agent grunted, pushing hard against it and rattling it.
Shamish came up and added his considerable weight and strength to it, and they
started pounding against it.
The gate began to buckle, and then, with one mighty coor-dinated push, they
got it partly bent outward.
"There's enough room to squeeze through!" O'Leary cried. "Come on, ma'am! Try
and get through!"
"I cannot see!" she protested. "I can only see the living!"
She felt around, using their tentacles for guidance, and man-aged to find the
hole, but squeezing through it with her wings proved difficult. Finally, she
felt herself being pushed to the ground, and while one of the
Pyrons pushed against the gate, the other pushed against her feet.
There were a lot of feathers left around, but now O'Leary managed to squeeze
through the bent corner of the gate and was able to help Shamish through.
Getting up, they helped the Amboran to her feet and made for the border, just
a meter or two away.
She felt a pain, like burning, on one wing, but only wanted out of that
horrible place and she went forward.
The temperature immediately changed. It was warmer, yet the air was much
dryer, a desertlike feeling to it, and over-head, quite suddenly, the sky was
clear and well-lit.
"You can fly all you want to now, if you can," Shamish told her. "You're in
Quislon."
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