Hell's Gate

floor here to the ceiling of the ventilation level below.
        He looked to the left and right, his eyes conditioned somewhat to the darkness so that the tunnels were a dim gray gloom rather than impenetrable pitch. Either way looked equally appealing. Or, rather, equally unappealing. If he went left or right, he would still be on the eleventh floor when the building-wide search was initiated, as it surely would be. But if he went down, he could work closer and closer to the projection room and the portal that linked this probability with his own. True, the plan had developed hitches, but he was not as concerned with the mission now as with saving his own skin. Thank heavens iron Victor was no longer in a position to control him! He left two of the micro-bombs behind and went down the drop shaft, using his knees and hips and shoulders to brace against injury.
        One floor after another, tearing skin off his fingers on the rough surface of the tunnel and shredding the knees of his jeans and the shoulders of his shirt, he went down, leaving a trail of bombs behind. It was not as good as distributing them evenly throughout the building, but it was the best he could manage under the circumstances. When he had counted off ten floors and knew he was downstairs, down where the projection room waited, he scrambled back along the main tunnel, looking for an outlet into an empty room.
        He found three. Behind the first, in a small, dimly lit room, half a dozen vacii slept in hammock-like affairs slung at varying heights between the rough, alabaster walls. Getting through there would be like trying to plod through a field of porcupines without touching a quill. Sooner or later he would wake one of them, and they would pull the roof in on him. The second and third rooms were both working chambers and had two vacii each. Perhaps he could have aimed his weapon from his hiding hole and killed both of them before they could make a sound, but he did not. Killing vacii was not as physically disturbing as killing a human being; he would not have the traumas from murdering aliens as he had from murdering Harold Jacobi. Perhaps that was a mistaken philosophy, an outgrowth of xenophobia implanted in him by his makers. However, he felt that it was morally the same. He knew his future creators had not meant him to be a wanton killer, otherwise they would have made it easy for him to murder.
        The fourth outlet was into a dark room. He looked out of the ventilation outlet, surveying the gray and brown and purple shadows until he was certain the place was empty. Then, moving as quietly as he could manage in his agitated state, he clambered from the shaft and dropped to the floor of the chamber. His feet made slapping sounds on the rock.
        There was silence.
        Now he had to try to decide how much the vacii knew. Did they realize where he had come from? Or did they think he was a trespassing human from this probability line? He could hope they had not yet realized the enormity of the situation, for if they hadn't there was yet a chance he could reach the projection room and get across to the basement where Lynda and the 810-40.04 waited.
        But if they figured it out… Well, there would be a heavy detachment waiting inside the projection room, none too happy about what he had done to the vacii prober operator and the twenty robots lined up for the invasion of his probability line. None too happy at all…
        Cautiously, he opened the door and looked up and down the corridor. It was mysteriously empty. He located the projection room and debated making a run for it. There was something about the hallway, though, that made the calm, the emptiness seem artificial.
        After five minutes of intense staring which made his eyeballs feel as if they had been marinated in lighter fluid, he shrugged his shoulders and walked out of the room, leaving the door open behind in the event he had to make a quick break for cover. He walked along the hall, keeping against the wall, his pellet gas pistol ready. As he passed the opening to the stairwell, he was aware of motion out of the corner of his eye. He turned. It was a vacii.
        No. Not a vacii. Two of them.
        The first was raising a pistol. Salsbury fired from the hip and caught the alien in the chest. It slammed back against the steps and went down with a terribly vacant gaze in its red eyes. Then something connected with Salsbury's hand and