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Show exterminate them all!" She picked up a table leg and threw it at the men who turned immediately and fled down the hall toward the main building. Chu's curses followed them until they raced around a corner and into the service areas, the doors of pantries, linen rooms, and android holding rooms flying by as they ran. "The back way," panted Phrapp, "hard by the aircar sheds." He was holding his wounded arm with one hand and running full awkwardly, his cloak billowing and flapping behind him and into Brandon's face. "We must needs commandeer an aircar," Phrapp continued, struggling for breath. Brandon, panting himself, raised his eyebrows. His second-in-command, his friend Phrapp, never ceased to amaze him. "Thou. . .fliest. . . t h e . . . aircars...?" Brandon panted, incredulous. "Nay." Brandon was brought up short at that. He seized Phrapp's cloak and stopped him. "Well, then," he said to Phrapp, his chest heaving, "how in Kostya's Hell are we to flee in an aircar?" Phrapp, now at a halt, stumbled against the wall and leaned there, looking at Brandon. He hadn't bethought himself of that. Marry, he hadn't bethought...! They were standing at that point in a darkened back hallway of the building, the halls around them deathly quiet for it was by then quite late-at least one hour past midnight. Then they heard the soft whirring of android rollers and their faces drained of all color. "Androids?" whispered Brandon. "At this time of night? By Saint Isaac's heels!" If there was one thing that terrified a Bauercrat more than the thought of flying in an aircar to the HighTartars, it was androids moving around when they weren't supposed to. Anything out of the 241 |
