Then he noticed that Parker was the supervising guard. A desperate plan occurred to Maro.

"Officer Parker? Could I talk to you a moment?"

The guard looked up in annoyance. "What is it, pinhead?"

"It's, uh, private."

Parker looked at the other guards, who were busy in the cell, then back at Maro. He moved closer. "What?"

"You know that, uh, device that Scanner is building for you?"

Parker glanced back at the other guards. When he spoke again, it was in a lowered tone. "Yeah? What about it?"

"It's stashed in my cell. These guys find it, they'll confiscate it, won't they?"

Parker chewed on that for a second. "Yeah. d.a.m.n."

"Look, I'm not hiding anything else. Why don't you come on over and search.

That way, you can tell them you've checked it and we can keep the thing for you

until we get it running right."

Parker looked at the other guards. "Yeah. Not a bad idea." Louder, he said, "I'm gonna go ahead and search a couple more. Keep on doing what you're doing."

In Maro's cell, Parker hefted the DM unit and the confounder. "This it?"

"Yes." G.o.d, he hoped the man didn't know anything about electronics...

Parker stared at it. "Kinda small, ain't it?"

Maro let out a slow breath. "Yes. Scanner knew you'd want to keep it out of

sight, so he made it especially small."

Parker said, "It working enough so I can see anything yet?"

"No. Scanner says by tomorrow."

Park grinned. "Good." He shoved the two pieces back into Maro's mattress, then

did a quick search of the rest of the cell. "You keep your mouth shut about this, you hear?" he told Maro.

"Yes, sir."

When the other guards came to Maro's cell, Parker waved them on. "I checked it already. It's clean." When he pa.s.sed, he gave Maro a tight grin. Maro nodded slightly and held his breath until they started on the next cell. It took a long time for his stomach to calm down.

"Here's the report on the search, Warden."

Stark looked up at Lepto and the flatscreen the big guard held. "Is it in the computer?"

"Yes, sir."

"Fine. Anything interesting?"

"Some locally grown leaf in a couple of cells, a knife made from a spring, a

couple of cans of geltrol with cloth fuses, ten or twelve bottles of potato brew."

"That's it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Okay. Throw the knifer and geltrols into the holes. Find out from the dopers

and drinkers where the patch and still are, then stick them in solitary, too. Use C wing."

"1 think that B wing has all the cells open-"

"I said C wing."

Lepto nodded impa.s.sively. "Yes, sir."

After Lepto had left. Stark punched up the search report and studied it. If anything, there was less contraband than usual. Once he'd found a working laser, built from a sheet metal cutter, and once before that a thermite bomb big enough to take out a whole cell block. This time it was almost disappointing. He had been so sure that something major would tum up, and nothing had. Ah, well. So much the better, actually; he had enough problems to deal with. His line to Maro was in the infirmary with some kind of infection, and there were still a dozen prisoners with gut-rot from the bad salad at lunch. d.a.m.n, it never rained but it poured.

And at that thought, the first distant thunder reached him, as the almost-likeclockwork afternoon electrical storm rolled toward the Cage. Stark relaxed, leaning back in his chair. Things would settle down tomorrow, after Karnaaj worked on Maro and left. He was sure he could steal some of that b.a.s.t.a.r.d's thunder with what Berque had learned. It would have to do, although the idea of mindwiping Maro still held some appeal.

He glanced at his desk chronometer. Time to go and visit Juete, and to h.e.l.l with all this c.r.a.p. Maybe he would sleep with her tonight, since Karnaaj wasn't coming until the morning. That should make her happy...

The night deepened, and Maro tried to rest, but even the relaxation techniques he had learned so well did not help; he could only lay there nervously, his heart pounding and his mouth dry, waiting for the time. There was a shift change at midnight, and he was set to go at one. Time enough for the new shift to settle down, they had figured. There was no way to know how long it would take for him to get to the infirmary. And he hadn't told them about Juete.

If they were lucky, they might have four hours of head start before the morning count, and if everything went right, four hours would put them out of reach. If Scanner managed to kill the comnet like he said he could, and if they could circ.u.mvent the locks on the warden's personal skimmer and get clear without being been, and if-if, if, if.

No point in worrying about it now.

He clutched the DM in sweaty hands, waiting as the time dragged slowly by. Finally, the moment came. He was five minutes early when he started the DM, but he couldn't wait any longer. Five minutes wouldn't make any difference, and if he had to lie still for another second he would go crazy.

He had eight-seven percent power; less than the last time, and there was more than a little reason to worry that they'd run out of juice before moving eight people through enough Zonn walls to get to the skimmer. But again, there was nothing to be done for it.

Maro took a deep breath, pointed the device at the rear wall of his cell, and triggered it. The wall turned to fluid as it had before, and, pulse racing, Maro again stepped into another dimension.

Chapter Fifteen.

Stark stormed out of Juete's cell in a rage. d.a.m.n her! How could she run so hot and cold? She was either all over him, begging him to stay, or she acted as if being with him was the most boring thing in the galaxy! Oh, she went through the moves, even seemed to enjoy it-but that was her genetic programming, no more. He could tell the difference. It was like the first few times all over again, and he hated it that way. Now that he had felt her fire, nothing less would satisfy him.

Let her rot in there, then. Maybe he'd just leave her alone for a few days and see how she liked it! But even as he stalked the silent hallways. Stark knew he wouldn't do that. He loved her, why couldn't she see that? Somehow, someday, she would see it, if it took the rest of her life. He would make certain of it.

It started out lucky. Maro took five steps to his left and pointed the DM at the wall. Then he stepped through, to find himself standing in the corridor between A and B blocks. Since his cell was on the north end of E block, he had skipped both D and A. Juete was in B, and the guard at the entrance was the only one he would have to pa.s.s.

The only way he could have hit it better would have been to walk directly into her cell.

He approached the guard, who sat at a desk facing the locked door to the isolation cells. That was logical; it was unlikely that anybody would try to break into isolation. There were several ways to play this scenario, and Maro had decided to act as if he had a good reason for being there until he could get close enough to the man to floor him. It would be nice if the guard didn't see him until too late...

It would have been nice, but it wasn't going to happen that way. The guard was neither asleep nor slow in reacting. He heard Maro when the latter was ten meters away, stood and pointed a broad-beam, single-shot hand wand at the smuggler.

"Hold it. What are you doing here?"

Maro smiled and held up the DM. "A delivery for the prisoner in B block."

"There ain't no prisoners in B, buddy."

Maro nodded and gave the man a conspiratorial wink. "Right. But the warden wants you to put this in a certain cell, you copy?"

The man frowned. "I thought n.o.body but me and the warden knew about her being there."

"That's right. I'm only a prisoner, I don't count."

The guard nodded. "Right about that. Okay, lemme see it." He waved Maro forward.

Maro realized there was no way he was going to take the man. The guard had his hand wand carefully aimed at Maro, and with that wide aperture, it was impossible to miss.

As Maro approached, the guard reached for his com board. "I'll have to check this with the warden. Funny, he didn't say anything about it when he left here a few minutes ago..."

"It's a surprise," Maro said. His already dry mouth grew yet drier. "But go ahead and check, he should be in his office by now."

The guard began to punch in the warden's personal code. It didn't matter where Stark was; if that sequence was completed, it would reach the warden. And if the guard got through to Stark, the escape was dead.

Maro sucked in a quick breath. He didn't want to do it, he wasn't even sure it would work, but he had no choice. He pointed the DM at the guard's belly and pushed the red b.u.t.ton.

The guard screamed as his abdomen literally burst into flame, spewing entrails. He was probably dead from ma.s.sive shock before he collapsed over the desk. His last living act was to trigger the hand wand, but by the time he fired the weapon, it was pointed straight up. The flash vibrated paint flakes from the ceiling, but otherwise did no harm.

Maro stared at the dead man. He had seen bodies exposed to hard vacuum through ruptured suits, and corpses bloating in the hot sunshine of a battlefield, but nothing quite so gruesome as this. The stench was almost enough to make him faint-that, coupled with the sickening realization that he had killed this man. Bile rose, and he turned away from the guard and vomited. It took him a minute to regain his composure; then he punched in the open code, and the door to B block slid back. Another touch, and all the isolation cells' doors swung open.

Juete was waiting for him. When he stepped inside, she looked at him for all of two seconds before rushing forward and embracing him. Maro felt himself respond to her, even under the circ.u.mstances.

"Come on," he said. "We've got to go."

"Thank you for coming for me."

"We'll talk about it later."

"Are you okay?"

He hesitated, then told her. "I had to kill the guard."

"That means there's no turning back."

"Yeah." He took her hand. "Come on." He pointed the DM at the Zonn wall to

the rear of her cell. "Stay close. It's very strange, where we're going." "Don't worry. You'll have a white shadow." Maro had to grin. He liked this woman.

His luck was not bad this time, but neither was it good. It took three tries before they reached a place where Maro felt they could risk going the rest of the way in

the real world. The first time had put them outside the shop; the second in a cell in D block-an empty one, fortunately. The third time they found themselves in the cafeteria. At least it was in the same wing as the infirmary. With luck, n.o.body would be in the corridors. They'd have to pa.s.s the morgue, the zombie ward and the rec room, but there were no posted guards until the infirmary.

Maro stroked the patch on his throat. "Scanner," he said quietly.

"Yes. Where the h.e.l.l are you? It's past two."

"I'll be there in exactly two minutes. Tell Sandoz."

"Copy."

To Juete he said, "Sandoz is going to distract the guard. You stay by the corner

of the rec room, out of sight, until I take the guard out, okay?"

"Anything you say."

Two minutes later, in the infirmary, Maro was able to sneak up behind the guard,