belt. She removed two small flat slabs of plastic and metal from a closet shelf, closed the closet, laid the slabs on a table. She came back to the screen, dialed to another view.
“The control section,” she said. “Our goal now!”
The control section was a large place. Telzey looked out at a curving wall crowded with instrument stands. On the right was a great black square in the wall—a blackness which seemed to draw the mind down into vast depths. “The Vingarran Gate,” said Kolki Ming. Two Sattarams stood at one end of the section, watching the technicians. They wore guns. The technicians, perhaps two dozen in all, represented three life forms, two of which suggested the humanoid type, though no more so than Couse’s people. The third was a lumpy disk covered with yellow scales and equipped with a variety of flexible limbs.
“Those two must die,” Kolki Ming said, indicating the Sattarams. “They’re controlled servants of the Suan Uwin, jointly conditioned by Boragost and Stiltik as safeguard against surprises by either. The instrument handlers are conditioned, too, but they’ll be no problem.” She switched off the screen. “Now come.” She took the two slabs from the table.
There was no more running, though Kolki Ming still moved swiftly. Five sections on, she stopped before a blank wall. “There’s a portal here, left 車 査定 incomplete to prevent discovery,” she said. “The section’s on one of the potential approaches to the control area, so it’s inspected frequently and thoroughly. Now I’ll close the field!”
She searched along the wall, placed one of the slabs carefully against it. It adhered. She opened the back of the slab, adjusted settings, pressed the cover shut. “Come through immediately behind me,” she told Telzey. “And be very quiet! On these last fifty steps, things might still go wrong.”
They came out into semidarkness, went down a flight of stairs. Below, Kolki Ming halted, head turned. Telzey listened from behind her. There were faint distant sounds, which might be voices but not Elaigar voices. After some moments they faded. Kolki Ming moved on silently, Telzey following.
The remaining slab went against a wall. Peering through the dark, Kolki Ming made final adjustments. She paused then, stepped back. Her face turned toward Telzey.
“We weren’t able to test this one,” she whispered. “When I close the last switch, it will trigger alarms—here, in an adjoining guarded section, and in the control area. Be ready!”
Her left hand reached out to the slab. Sound blared in the darkness about them, and Kolki Ming had vanished through the portal. Telzey followed at once.
The two Sattarams on guard had no chance. Kolki Ming had emerged from the wall behind them, gun blazing. By then, there were guns in their hands, too; but they died before they saw her. She ran past the bodies toward the technicians at the instrument banks, shouting Elaigar orders above the clanging alarm din in the air. The technicians didn’t hesitate. For a moment, there was a wild scramble of variously shaped bodies at an exit at the far end of the big room. Then the last of them disappeared.
Kolki Ming was at the instrument stands, gun back in its holster, hands flicking about. Series of buttons stabbed down. Two massive switches above her swung over, snapped shut. The alarm signal ended.
In