"Okay, James," he relented"Bring the epees but that's allWe'll have to move fast."

"Say, Hosato," Sasha interrupted"Do you still need this pigI've waited a long time to have him in my sights."

Her blaster was pointed levelly at Gedge's head.

"Yes!" Hosato insisted more hastily than was neces-sary"RickBring him alongHe might be our ticket out of here."

The small party traversed the stairs to the s.p.a.ceport without further incident, though Hosato felt an increas-ing pressure for speedHe was sure that somewhere in the complex a counterattack was being prepared.

"What are you expecting to find in the s.p.a.ceport?" Sasha asked.

"Hopefully a ship to get us away from this complex and off this planet," Hosato replied.

"I mean, specifically what are we going afterDo you know if there's a ship standing by for takeoff?"

"No," Hosato admitted"We'll just have to take pot luck."

Sasha shook her head"It doesn't work that wayThey might have some company ships posted here, but it takes at least half an hour to get them ready for takeoff."

"I know that!" Hosato snapped"If we have to take the half-hour, we'll just have to take itI'm hoping there's something ready to goEither way, we won't know until we check it out, will we?"

"Don't get your back upI was just asking."

Hosato sighedThe strain of the last thirty-six hours was starting to tell on his nervesHe had catnapped in the crawler, but except for that, had had no sleep since the robot uprising.

"Sorry, SashaI'm just a bit tired is all."

"Shh!" came Rick's call from ahead.

Hosato hurried up the stairs to join the mechanic at the head of the formationRick was squatting on the stairs, a half-dozen steps short of where they termi-nated at a small landingGedge was sitting beside the mechanic, staring groggily at his shoes.

At the far side of the landing were two sets of air-locks with large gla.s.s windows in themThrough the farthest set Hosato could see a uniformed security guard apparently in casual conversation with a man in a gray jumpsuit.

"Security," Sasha hissed in his ear from close be-hind him"The double doors are a safety precaution against a failure in the hookups with the shipsThey can be opened only from the inside."

"That's what we have Gedge here for," Hosato re-plied grimly"RickGet Gedge up there and rap on the gla.s.sDon't let them see your face!"

Rick nodded his understandingHe grabbed Gedge by one arm and stood up boldly in full view of the doorDragging his dazed charge with him, he strode to the first lock and began rapping frantically on the gla.s.s.

Surprised, the interior guard spun around and took in the scene at a glanceWhat he saw was one of his fellow guards supporting their chief, who was obvi-ously in bad shape physicallyHuman nature took over.

The guard whirled and shoved his companion asideHe hammered two b.u.t.tons in the wall panel with his fist, and the double doors opened.

"It's a trick!" Gedge managed, coming suddenly to life and trying to pull away from Rick.

The guard realized his error-too late.

Rick released Gedge and was through the door in one long bound"Don't even twitch, sonny!" he said darkly, leveling his blaster at the startled guard.

The others swarmed through the doors after him, Hosato roughly dragging Gedge with themRick re-lieved the guard of his blaster as Sasha turned her at-tention to the man in the jumpsuit.

"I'll ask once," she announced"Who or what are you?"

"I'm a. a taxi driverThat's all!" the man stam-mered"I-I've got a ship standing by to fly some bigwigs to a conference on ThetaI'm n.o.body im-portantReally!"

Sasha laughed mirthlessly"n.o.body importantHey, HosatoIt looks like you winWe've got a ship."

"It's about time we got lucky," Hosato growled"Where is it?"

A shrill beeping interrupted themA communica-tions light was flashing on the wall panel.

"Answer it!" Rick ordered, gesturing at the guard with his blaster.

The man licked his lips nervously, then complied"s.p.a.ceport!" he said into the speaker.

"Seal the s.p.a.ceport," came a voice over the speaker"Possible sabotage attempt in progressThey've got the chief as a hostage."

The guard's eyes darted to the group in front of him before replying"Code Victor acknowledged."

Rick sprang forward to shove him away from the panel, but it was too lateThere wasn't a member of their party that doubted the fact the guard's signal had pinpointed their location.

"That tears it," Hosato snarled"SashaIs there any way they can stop our takeoff?"

"Only through the doors there," she answered briskly.

"Well, we'll just have to see how good their security system really isYouWhere is your ship and what kind is it?"

"Pad Eight," the man responded"It's a Starblazer III Luxury Cruiser."

"You'd better not be lying," Sasha snarled.

"It's thereSo help me G.o.dI don't want any trou-ble." The man seemed genuinely terror-struck.

"I can fly it," Rick volunteered.

"Okay, check it out, fast!" Hosato ordered.

"Cover him, James," Rick snapped, indicating the guard, and was gone, sprinting down the corridor.

"Gedge!" Hosato said, turning to the security chief"Fm letting you go-"

"Wait a minute!" Sasha interrupted.

"Shut up, SashaDo you hear me, GedgeI'm let-ting you goThe men we killed got in the way, but I don't kill people for convenienceListen to me, GedgeConvince those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds about what's going on at Mc-CraeWe weren't lyingConvince them, Gedge, or on my family's honor I'll come back here and kill you, and all the guards in the galaxy won't be able to stop me!"

"It's here!" came Rick's call from down the corri-dor.

"All right, get him out of here," Hosato ordered, shoving Gedge into the arms of the waiting security guard"And move it, before I change my mindYouThe pilotYou tooMove it!"

The pilot needed no additional urging as he hastily followed the others through the doors.

Hosato slammed his hand against the door controls, and they hissed shut, sealing the s.p.a.ceport against their pursuers.

"Let's get out of here," he said, starting down the corridor after Rick.

"Hosato," Sasha said, overtaking him"Sometime we're going to have a few words about letting Gedge go."

"It's the only chance we have of convincing Raven-steel-"

They both spun at the sound of blasters behind themThe hounds were trying to burn their way through the airlocks.

"Come on, James!" Hosato urged, and the three of them sprinted for the ship.

"You can't count on Ravensteel to do anything," Sasha insisted"Even if they believe Gedge, which is doubtful, they won't lift a fingerWhy should they?"

Hosato sighedThis argument had been going non-stop since they lifted off from Grunbecker's PlanetHe thought it was getting circular, but couldn't be sureLack of sleep was making his mind fuzzy.

"Look, Sasha-" he began wearily.

"Say, I hate to interrupt," Rick interrupted through the open door to the pilot's compartment, "but where are we going?"

"What was that, Rick?" Hosato blinked.

"I said, where are we goingI want to get this baby on autopilot and join the brawlI've got a couple thoughts on the subject myself."

Hosato hadn't really given any thought to their destinationHis main concern had been getting away from Griinbecker'sStill, everyone seemed to be look-ing at him for a decision.

"I don't know," he said, running a hand through his hair"Pick the nearest free s.p.a.ceportWe can go our separate ways from there."

"Just like that!" Sasha shouted"Go our separate waysJust turn our backs on the whole mess and pre-tend it never happened."

"What do you want us to do?" Hosato exploded"We barely got out of there aliveIf your whole se-curity setup and guard force can't stop 'em, we sure can't."

"If we don't, who will?" She glared back.

"Hold your fireI'm coming in!" Rick popped in from the pilot's compartment and stood grinning at them.

"Now that I've successfully set foot in no-man's land, there are a few observations I'd like to make." He began to pace up and down the lounge, adopting the mock characteristics of a lecturer.

"First of all, Sasha's right when she says we have to do somethingThe robots that ma.s.sacred everybody at McCrae have to be stopped, and we can't rely on anyone else to do the jobRemember, we didn't be-lieve what was happening ourselves until it was too late and we were in the middle of itI don't see any way anyone else is going to be convinced of the dan-ger until it threatens them directly, and then again it will be too late."

The mechanic paused and pointed a dramatic finger at Hosato.

"On the other hand, our ace superspy here is right, tooThere isn't much we can do."

"Then we're at an impa.s.se," Hosato observed"We have to do something, but we can't do anythingThe odds are against us."

"I thought you were supposed to be some kind of expert at beating long odds,"

Sasha probed"h.e.l.l, a while back you were all set to take on that same air-tight security system single-handed."

"And now, between Sasha and me, you've got a ready pool of information as to what the security lay-out is and what makes the machines tick," Rick added.

Hosato stared at the floorThe others remained si-lent, letting him turn the facts over in his mindFi-nally he sighed and shook his head.

"NoIt still won't work." he announced"There's one big problem no one seems ready to faceWe don't know what happened back thereUntil we know what went wrong, we don't know for sure what we're up againstWithout that little piece of informa-tion, any plan for a counterattack would be suicidal."

The trio sat silently, each lost in their own thoughts.

"Wait a minute!" Rick exclaimed.

"What is it?" Sasha asked, but the mechanic was gone, disappearing through the door of the pilot's compartment.

He was back in a moment, brandishing a sheaf of papers in his hand.

"Do either of you speak computer?" he asked ea-gerly.

He dumped the papers in Hosato's lap, who bent to examine themThe papers were covered with what appeared to be typed mathematical notations inter- spersed with word fragments.

"What are they?" he asked.

"You should know," Rick replied smugly"You gave 'em to me, back at the crawler bay, when you carried Sasha in."

"And you've been carrying them all this time?"

Hosato vaguely remembered the incident, but was astounded the mechanic still had the doc.u.ments in his possession after all they had been through.

"Yep," Rick announced proudly"Had 'em stashed inside my shirtThe guards who searched me at Ravensteel looked at 'em but didn't figure they were important enough to take away from me."

"For the benefit of the unenlightened," Sasha inter-rupted sarcastically, "what is it you've got there?"

"It's a copy of the most recent entries to the computer-monitor file," Rick informed her"The guys were going over it at the end there, trying to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it."

"I hate to admit this," Hosato said, "but I don't know what that is or what it means."

Rick looked a bit distressed, but answered him"Everything that's input into the central control com-puter pa.s.ses through the monitor file. every pro-gram change, addition, request, everythingIf we're right and Turner did something that created a new logic system in the robots, there should be a record of it here."

"I can't help you there," Sasha interjected"What I don't know about computers could fill a library."

"Same here," Rick admitted"I was hoping one of you.."

His voice trailed off as he noticed Hosato's frenzied activityHosato had scavenged a pencil from the depths of the bar and was busily scribbling something on the back of one of the sheets.

"Rick!" he said, handing the mechanic the paper"Set a course for those coordinates."

"Where are we going?" Rick asked, studying the sheet.

"To visit a friend of mine," Hosato replied"He builds and programs custom robotsLet's see if he can decipher this mess."