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Updated: May 14, 2025
As they floated slowly downward they heard a sharp explosion overhead. He smiled wryly at Astrid, dropping beside him. "Your change of heart," he said, "didn't come any too soon." Reine's laboratory, like a great deal else in the Allied Systems, had gone underground as galactic war approached. Far beneath the surface, the grav-well ended in a corridor, stretching out a hundred meters.
As he spoke, the jet reappeared and slipped down low over the trees to the west. "Hurry," he said, "they'll be on us in seconds." She looked at him, hesitated. Then, "All right. Inside." She stepped over to the trunk of the tree and spoke softly. A panel opened in the ground at the foot of the tree, over a grav-well. They dropped gently, and the panel closed behind them.
At that moment the grav-well door slid open and Astrid and Selan stood before him. The first police ship fired before it landed. The blast came before Thane had reached Astrid and Selan. He saw Selan crumple. She was dead when he touched her. He had the impulse to do something, to say something, for one who had forced herself to do so much. But there was no time.
The deeply concerned look in her eyes made him feel that he was a little more to her than just a part of an underground conspiracy. "The arm's all right," he said. "A sentry grazed it. I'll see you." He turned away and started back for the roof. There was a throbbing ache in his arm as he went back up the grav-well.
Thane picked up a hand-control from the ledge in the sentry's cubicle and led Selan to the well. They dropped gently, interminably. At last they reached "13." From the distance they had dropped, Thane judged they were far underground if this grav-well was timed as most were. He held Selan's arm and stopped their descent with his hand control. They stepped out into a darkened corridor.
With luck, they'd have a few vital moments for the voice of the Holy Church to go out over the planets. The anti-grav settled gently on the upper terrace. Thane helped Selan out into the stinging cold of the Onzar night. Just inside the gloomy passage to the grav-well a harsh voice sounded. "Halt!" They stopped. Thane made out a uniformed man, his hand on his holster.
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