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Show from behind. The situation clarified itself to him on the instant and he slid down and off his seat and out of his captor's arms, then scrambled on all fours like an Earthski hedgehog to the other side of the room. Behind him, a round table rocked once, then twice, then fell with a resounding crash, scattering a cask of empty BubbleMemories all over the floor. Squinting in the half light from the partly opened door, Phrapp tried to locate his adversary, praying it wasn't one of the Exalted Board of Managers, especially Her Grace, Manager Jensen, who was the very devil with the broadsword. Then he saw the glint of a knife, he saw the point, bare and lethal, and he knew he was not sparring with a NewOxbridge fellow. Keeping his eye on the knife, he reached out and began rolling bubbles across the room, crawling back toward the door under cover of the noise. Curses issued from the vicinity of the console. Provincial curses. Soft boots scuttled along the wall, tripped. Something fell. More curses. Phrapp lunged for the door and was immediately knocked sideways by a missile catapulting from his right. It was his assailant, a small, wiry fellow, but evidently made of steel. Could it be something new in androids? Phrapp rolled away from his tormenter, struggled to get extricated from the folds of his cloak, then scrambled back toward the console, by now gasping for breath. Then he lunged toward the door again, holding his cloak out like a sail. The edge of it caught his assailant's knife and it clattered across the room. Now we're even, thought Phrapp. The floor came up and hit him then, and he kicked wildly to remove the pincers clinging to the bottoms of his legs. Phrapp and his assailant rolled on the floor among the bubbles, the fallen round table, and a couple of empty goblets. The place sounded like a bowling hall on 165 |
