Star quest

or was that some front for a larger design they had on things? His mind was wrapped in on itself. Whatever was coming, however, and whatever had been left behind, he could not imagine anything but being a pervert. Their cause, at least, seemed just, the first righteous cause or purpose he had seen in civilization. Personally, he was hooked on these people: comical Babe, songwriter Fish, competent Corgi, incomparable Hunk, possibly even Seer now that he understood him…
And there had been hissing in the bushes
…
    This is it," Corgi said, as they all gathered around him.
    A small cavelet yawned upward at an angle.
    A fresh breeze swept down, stirred their hair and tickled their nostrils with freedom.
    "We cleaned out the mouth of this a long time ago, broke through to the surface. A back door for emergencies. It comes up in a clump of rocks just outside the gate. There's no cover for about a thousand feet. Remember, when you're out, run. The walls are very near, and you don't want to draw any attention.
Don't stand about making a target of yourself
."
    Then he was snaking up through the blackness, moving amazingly fast if one thought of him as eyeless, progressing normally if one remembered he had radar cells. Dirt crashed down in handfuls, but there was no sign of a cave-in. Mayna went next with Seer, passing without notice, blending with the walls. Gone. Fish followed, then Babe, at his insistence. Hunk and he were the last. Heaving mightily, he lurched upward. He was grateful for his new and powerful body, for without it, he could never have done what was expected of him.
    They broke ground in a pile of rocks just as Corgi had said. Straight ahead a clump of brush and trees loomed darkly. He wondered whether they had transferred the trees as well as the caves, then decided they hadn't There were many other clumps of growth further out, exactly like this one, and they would not have transferred them all. Possibly, in the old city, this clump of brush and trees had been closer to the outlet. A thousand feet was a terribly long way when the guards were so close. He swiveled his head about, taking Hunk's with it, to look at the wall which was not even two hundred feet away. Once he had reached the trees where the others now waited, the growth would conceal their retreat to the meeting place the Old Man had chosen. This was the only dangerous ground, this open space. Heaving again, he cleared the rocks and began running, his ankles twisting slightly in the loose sand. But he would have made it—would have if some citizen had not been leaving the gate then. The huge portals swung open, and floodlights flashed on to show the traveler the road. The light caught him and Hunk. Plainly. Brightly. Less than half a dozen seconds passed before a stronger light snapped on, found him. The sand began boiling as near-miss laser beams splashed around him. The shrubs seemed an eternity away.
    The searchlights began fanning the bushes, more than a dozen of then now, picking out darker forms that were Corgi, Babe, the others. Beams lanced in, setting the desert weed on fire. The brush erupted quickly, jumping from a tiny tongue of flame to an impenetrable wall of fire. The others were running from it. He saw Mayna fall on her belly, take aim, and laser out a searchlight Another. Another still.
    He ran, his tongue lolling from the corner of his mouth much like the tongue of a dog. He dropped onto the sand next to the others and drew his own pistol. Hunk had one clutched in his tentacle. They fired. Now and then he saw a guard slump away from the wall where he had been hiding. The majority of the Romaghins, however, were behind portions of the wall that were too well fortified and were too wary of the lasers to let themselves be injured very easily. Mayna pumped steadily at the lights, every shot counting, every shot making their hiding place a little less brilliantly illuminated. But the wall guards were searching out the source of her beam, trying to fix the exact location. Every shot she fired added to their basis for calculations, helped them vector in on her. A block of guards came through the gate, the front line blasting steadily to cover their advance.
    "Run!" Corgi shouted, following his own advice.
    They leaped from the sand and rounded the wall of flame, momentarily putting a barrier between themselves and the troops. But the Romaghins would soon clear it too. And suddenly they
had
cleared it. There was a scream. Tohm turned