Her ears twisted forward. "What do you mean?"

"Meet David Wikondu, the guy you said shot the Ranthanik."

"What? How can you-?"

"Save it. Can you get by on oxygen and nitrogen?"

She hummed softly. "Maybe for a few minutes. Not much longer."

"I think a few minutes are all we"ve got. Give me your ID card."

Hesitantly, she reached into a pocket in her sash and handed the gold-colored card to him. He bent down and slid it under the door beside them, then, stuffing his rocks into pockets, he took her in his arms, making sure her face nestled into his shoulder.

Without her ID she wouldn"t have a force field of her own any- more, but she should be able to breame inside his.

He started running down the hallway again, glad she was light. She coughed and clung tighter to him.

He heard more commotion in the hallway behind them. He hoped it was Hotel Security, but he wasn"t going to bet his life on it. If the Andromeda"s security robots were anything like the Hightower"s-and his previous experience with them told him they were-then they usually showed up long after they could do anything useful.

He skidded around another comer, found a drop shaft in front of them, and leaped into it, nearly bowling over a Grota who was just getting off. They fell for half a dozen floors, then swung off and ran through more hallways until David was pretty sure he"d lost any pursuit. He stopped at a T-intersection and looked cautiously down the side pa.s.sage, but it was deserted.

Sarell was coughing steadily now. She pulled away from him, breathed the ambient air for a moment, then coughed again and stuck her face back into his force field.

"I don"t know which is worse," she wheezed- "Hang in there. I think we-"

A patch of fur on Sarell"s arm turned instantly black, and she howled in pain. David leaped into the side pa.s.sage, ran to the end of it, turned again, ran, then skidded to a stop at the next. "They"ve got to be tracking my ID, too," he said, setting 244 Jerry Offion Sarell down and digging DeLange*s card out of his pocket.

"That"s the only way they could have found us."

"I cannot understand you," she said.

Of course not. Without her ID, she had no translator.

"We"re about to be even," David said. He took one last deep breath, shoved the card under another door, and grabbed Sarell"s hand. Together they ran on down the corridor.

His first breath of the habitat"s ambient air nearly seared his lungs. There was enough ammonia in it to scrub the decks with, and sulfur compounds and a couple dozen more exotic gases as well. He couldn"t smell it, but he would bet money there was methane in it, too. All the gases that leaked out of the force fields mixed together. It was evidently easier to leave it this way than to try cleaning it up; besides, with so many different species coming and going, what would they have used for a baseline anyway?

He hadn"t blacked out yet, so evidently there was at least a little bit of oxygen in it as well. That was a blessing, for him anyway. Some other species found oxygen deadly.

The gravity varied from heavy to nothing, too. Evidently it didn"t reset to any particular value after someone had pa.s.sed, but stayed whatever it had last been until another being came along. It felt like running over uneven ground, except there was no way to know where the b.u.mps were.

That explained the peculiar stumbling gait of the a.s.sa.s.sin.

And the air tank. He hadn"t been carrying false ID; he hadn"t been carrying ID at all, for fear of being traced.

Just as the ones chasing them now weren"t. The dead one at Sarell"s suite had carried an air tank, too. David considered looping back for it, but he had no a.s.surance it contained any- thing better than what he was breathing now. Besides, some- one might still be waiting for them there.

He wished they still had a translator, but they didn"t need speech to communicate things like "left here," or "I"m chok- ing to death!" They ran, staying just a few turns ahead of their pursuers, but slowly losing ground as they lost stamina in the bad air.

David realized he was eventually going to have to stop and make a stand with his two rocks. That would be suicide, of course, but unless he could find a better weapon, and soon, he was going to have to try it.

VOLATILE Mix 245 He was panting like a dog, but his vision was growing full of swirling lights. He needed more oxygen. Did oxygen rise?

That depended on the average density of everything else, but he bet it wouldn"t- But methane probably would. And hydrogen, definitely.

Holy s.h.i.t He pulled one of the rocks from his pocket, then dug into the pocket again and came out with another steel half-solar. Mother of G.o.d. He"d just discovered his weapon.

Maybe. But could he use it without blowing up the Androm- eda in the process?

Probably. Oxygen would be the limiting factor, not meth- ane or hydrogen. Humanity and its cousins were a distinct minority in the hotel.

"Up!" he shouted, pointing at the ceiling. "Find us a lift shaft!" He knew his pursuers could hear him, too, but that was fine. Let "em follow.

Sarell turned around just long enough to see where he pointed, then took off running again, zigzagging through guest-filled corridors and meeting rooms until she eventually came to another lift, but instead of jumping into the shaft she ran toward one of the pulsing orifices in the wall beside it and squeezed into that.

"What are you doing!" David screamed, but when she be- gan to rise into the wall, he realized she was right. They"d be easy targets in an open lift shaft, but their pursuers couldn"t shoot at them in the enclosed elevator.

David stepped in after her, wincing as the walls squeezed tight around him and a wave of constriction carried him up- ward. The walls of the tunnel were nearly frictionless; he would hardly have been aware of movement if there hadn"t been an opening at each deck.

Sarell slid out of the lift after a dozen floors or so. David jumped out just long enough to look down the open lift shaft and see through the swiriing tracers in his vision that, yes, they were still being pursued by what looked like three more Loren Lames, then he jumped back in and let the enclosed lift carry him on up. He let it take him as far as it would go, eventually spitting him out on the top floor. It wasn"t the top of the hotel, just the top of the multi-species wing, but it was far enough.

Aside from himself, and moments later, Sarell, the deck was deserted. It was evidently too far up to be a convenient 246.

Jerry Offion guest deck, or maybe the hotel just didn"t have enough guests to fill it up yet, but whatever the reason there were no signs of life at all- Perfect. David looked for the air lock he knew had to be there, found it only a few paces away. It was de- signed for emergencies; it had a solid door rather than a force field, and from the hinges it looked like it opened outward.

That might complicate things, but it should still work. He wished he knew what kind of habitat lay beyond, but at this point he couldn"t afford to be choosy.

Sarell took the hint when he pointed at the lock, and stag- gered over to open the door while he peeked down the lift shaft again. The three disguised aliens, all of them armed and wearing breathing equipment, were the only ones in the shaft for twenty floors or so. Good. The other guests" force shields should guard them from harm on the decks below, but these three would be as vulnerable as David and Sarcll.

They were rising fast. David backed away from the shaft, ran for the air lock, and climbed inside after Sarell, pulling the door almost but not quite closed. Then, just as he saw the first of the a.s.sa.s.sins rise into view, he struck his half-solar against the rock.

It made the tiniest of sparks, barely visible under the bright light in the air lock, but the flash of burning methane and hy- drogen nearly blinded him and the explosion blew him half- way across the lock. It would have been worse, but the pressure of burning gases on the other side slammed the door closed with the force of an angry giant, cutting off the blast before it had a chance to develop to full force.

His head rang from the concussion and from lack of oxy- gen. He crawled back toward the door, trying to stand up and get to the air controls, but everything started to swirl around him and he lost his balance, falling with a thump to the floor.

He tried to stand again, but only made it to his knees.

Sarell couldn"t have been in much better shape than him, but he watched her drag herself to the opposite door, pull her- self upright, and punch the b.u.t.ton that sent cold. cloudy white gas pouring in over them.

Don"t let it be ammonia, David thought. He took a shallow breath. It smelled like something had died in the storage tank, but it didn"t kill him outright so he took another. Sarell seemed to be doing okay with it, too. They were gasping like VOLATILE Mix 247.

beached fish, but still alive, when security robots opened the lock a few minutes later.

Searchers found the a.s.sa.s.sins bobbing in the currents at the top of the lift shaft. They had either been blasted downward by the explosion and knocked unconscious on one of the landings below, or the pressure wave alone had done the job, but when the security robots pulled them down they found one dead of a broken neck and the other two alive but heavily burned and unresponsive. All three were Bajodas, and though n.o.body could trace them to the Bajoda delegation, n.o.body be- lieved they"d acted alone, either.

"They wanted to start a war between humanity and the Ranthanik," Sarell said when she heard the news. She and David were recovering in the infirmary, lying back on exam- ining tables while once again wrapped in their separate force coc.o.o.ns and breathing their own atmospheres. There were a few other patients in the infirmary, mostly suffering from anx- iety at seeing a roiling fireball rushing down the lift shafts and drop shafts toward them, but their force fields had kept them from any physical harm.

"Between us and the Ranthanik?" David asked. "What for?"

Sarell made a growling sound that didn"t translate. She shook her head and said, "It"s always better to have someone else fight your wars for you. The Bajodas want to take over human s.p.a.ce, but they don"t want to pay the price so they tried to get someone else to do it for them. They would prob- ably have waited until the war was winding down and then joined the Ranthaniks for a share of the spoils. Now they"ll be lucky if the Ranthaniks don"t attack them."

"Bajodas." David nodded. "I guess it makes sense. But that means you were right about something else; they weren"t after you at all. They were after me, because they were afraid I was onto them. And I led them straight to you."

"I forgive you," Sarell said. "It"s the least I could do after falsely accusing you of being an a.s.sa.s.sin yourself."

"Well, I guess maybe we"re even, then."

There was a commotion at the door, then Amba.s.sador DeLange burst into the infirmary, trailing medical robots like a retinue behind him. "There you are!" he roared when he 248 Jerry Offton saw David. "You"re in deep trouble, Wikondu, I"ll have your head on a stake for this."

David sighed. "I guess I shouldn"t have expected you to thank me."

"Thank you? For what? For knocking me out and leaving me locked in a prison cell? For scaring the h.e.l.l out of half the peace delegation? For d.a.m.n near blowing up the entire Hotel Andromeda?"

"Just one wing of it," David said. "And it didn"t blow; there wasn"t enough oxygen for that."*

"Just one wing," DeLange said with a snort. "Well, it hap- pened to be the wing I was in, and I"m not about to forget it."

Sarell said softly, "Nor am I. David saved my life. You may not realize it yet, but he probably saved yours and the rest of humanity"s as well. I suggest you calm down and con- sider the ramifications of what happened here before you blow a perfect chance for improving your status among the rest of your race."

"What do you mean?" asked DeLange.

"I mean if I were in your position, I would much rather re- turn from the conference with a hero at my side than with a criminal."

"Oh," said DeLange. "Aha." He rubbed his chin thought- fully for a moment, then nodded. "I see your point."

David shifted uncomfortably on his exam table. "Wait a minute. I"m not going anywhere. I"ve got a hotel to manage."

"I imagine they can spare you for a publicity tour to Earth,"

DeLange said- His tone of voice left little room for doubt A publicity tour, eh? Hmm. As a hero, no less. Staying in some of the best hotels from all through history, and dining in restaurants famous before humanity had left the planet ... The Hightower would never have paid for such a trip, but they were looking for something new to offer their guests. David didn"t think he could recommend the Andromeda"s new life system, not until they worked a few more bugs out of it, but in the meantime maybe a touch of old-worid opulence would suffice.

He made a big show of thinking it over, then just as DeLange was about to erupt with another outburst, he said, "Well, if you insist. Maybe I could spare a week or two.

Three at the- outside."