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Updated: July 3, 2025
Those groundcars that were hanging around had attacked one of the entrance buildings." "Space!" growled Placer. "There must be a conspiracy involved here somewhere. We'd better stay up here, then." He pulled the lever beside the gate to the ramp, and it rumbled down and crashed into place. "At least, those two are trapped below," he said with satisfaction.
"No matter how altruistic you may be about it, you get man to the point that he doesn't depend on atmospheric oxygen here, and domes, pressurized houses and groundcars, oxygen equipment a great many things are going to be unnecessary. But there'll still be a lot of other things we'll have to have from Earth.
Dark remembered that Goat had always kept four groundcars on hand. There were three here now, all in advanced stages of dismantlement. At one of them, a small figure in black tunic and loose trousers was bending over, head and arms plunged into the bowels of the engine. Dark hesitated.
The Guesser thought rapidly. Tubeways were for Fours and Fives. Threes had groundcars; Ones and Twos had aircars; Sixes and below walked. And spacemen walked. Trouble is, spacemen aren't used to walking, especially on a planet where they weigh twenty per cent more than they're used to.
"We don't know what's going to happen above, and we can't help much by staying inside, now that we can't hold that corridor and bottle them up in a room until Cheng and the Phoenix break in," said Dark. "We'd best get up to one of the exit buildings, get out through the airlock and get picked up by one of the groundcars.
He and Maya started for the ramp, unaware that the building which was their goal housed the farm's control room, and the watching Vidonati. Above, a few moments later, Vidonati called Placer on the intercom. "Placer, they've come back to the groundcars and turned them in this direction," said Vidonati.
It was then that the Phoenix, the three groundcars drawn up with their heavy guns focused, blasted the airlock of the north building. In seconds, the airlock was burned through. There was no emergency barrier down on this ramp. The heavy, Earth-pressured air of the north building whistled out into the desert.
"None of the groundcars at Ultra Vires was in operating condition." "Then there's no chance of the rest of us escaping," said Old Beard disappointedly. "We can't get at the groundcars here, and the marsuits you brought won't help. The oxygen supply of a marsuit isn't adequate to take us from here to the nearest civilization." "I think we can get to the groundcars," answered Dark confidently.
I discovered, before I was shot, that I can operate just as well outside, in the Martian atmosphere, without a helmet. And that's why Goat's records may solve our problem. "So tonight I'll leave this place and go to Ultra Vires. If there are any marsuits and groundcars left there, I'll come back here with them, and you and Happy and Shadow can escape with me.
At least I am, unless you can run one of these groundcars with psychokinetic power." "No, apparently I'm not that good at it yet," said Dark. "Maybe I could teleport in any parts you need. No wait! I just remembered something! Come with me." They turned off into a side corridor, found stairs and climbed to the top floor of the building.
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