Hell's Gate

had the plaster? Leave smoking, discolored craters in his stomach and chest? Or would it splinter his flesh as it was now doing to the door, shatter him into thousands of separate slivers?
        Either way, it would kill him.
        He shook his head, angry at himself for his terror over such a simple thing as a vibrabeam. Then he stopped, astounded, at the realization that he knew what sort of weapon this futuristic thing was. For a moment, he almost lost all touch with reality, trying to cope with this new aspect of his mind. But he found that the thought had come from iron Victor, all but gone from his psyche now. Iron Victor knew that was a vibrabeam, and it scared him almost as much as it did soft Victor.
        Salsbury looked around, deciding on a course of action. He stood on the toilet seat, unhooked the single window on the outside wall, and pushed on it. It stuck, made a protesting whine, then swung outward without any screen to block it. He looked down, craning his neck to assess the bad news. Instead, it was good news. Relatively… He did not have to leap two floors to the ground, for the porch roof was only five feet away.
        The second vibrabeam blast hit the door and blew the top of it to shreds, a howitzer striking a nightgown. Twenty feet beyond, the intruder stood in the corridor, his firing arm raised, brass-capped finger pointing at the bottom half of the door. His blue eyes reflected the chandelier light, but there was no depth to that reflection. Just two blue pennies.
        Salsbury grabbed the shower rod with both hands, walked his feet up the wall, and went through the bathroom window feet first because he did not want to turn his back completely on his enemy. For a moment, he thought his hips were going to stick and deny him exit. He grunted, did a bump and grind, and was suddenly free. Next, his shoulders threatened more problems, though he worked them swiftly loose just as the bottom half of the bathroom door exploded in a shower of shavings and sticks which rattled like locusts against the tile.
        The intruder with the magic finger was half a dozen feet beyond. He raised his weapon toward Salsbury's head. The brass gleamed. Then Victor was through the window, dropping onto the porch roof, slipping, falling, rolling painfully toward the edge.
        He dug his fingers into the shingles, lost his hold when a fingernail ripped and sent wiry, burning pain stabbing through his hand. He had visions of falling fifteen feet to the ground, flat on his back on a raised stone in the flagstone walk, his spinal column snapping like a pretzel. He flailed wildly, tried to forget the aching fingernail, and managed to catch onto some of the ill-fitted shingles that offered support. He lay there a second, sucking in and blowing out the cool evening air, blessing the roofer who had not slipped shingle to shingle without a seam. A moment later, he came onto his knees, aware of the folly of staying within view of the bathroom window. He rose, crouched, and went back across the roof, against the wall of the house.
        He listened, heard what was left of the door crash inward across the bathroom floor. Thankful that porches ran almost continually around all sides of this old place, he turned toward the rear of the house and ran lightly along the roof. He came to the end of the side porch, looked at the three-foot gap between this roof and the roof of the rear porch. He would not only have to leap, but leap around a corner. Hesitating, he looked back to the open bathroom window. The intruder's head was stuck out, and he was trying to aim his brass fingertip.
        Salsbury leaped, landed on the next roof and stumbled across it as if he were leaning into a strong wind, waving his arms and trying to keep from falling.
        His balance regained, he walked to the spouting at the edge of the shingles and looked onto the back lawn. It was only fifteen feet, and doubtless iron Victor would have thought nothing of it, but it seemed a mile now. He bit his lip and jumped.
        He hit the dewy grass, rolled onto his side like a skier taking a fall, and came quickly into a crouch. He listened for the sound of the intruder's feet on the roof above, but heard only a curious leaden silence that made him think, for a moment, that all that had just happened was a nightmare. Then, distantly, Intrepid began barking again, still shut in the master bedroom. Poor, noble dog, locked out of the