I didnt know what to expect as I walked towards the door, while my companions obediently held back, but I was looking forward to another opportunity to talk to Alice. I didnt suppose that shed answer my questions any less guardedly than before, but I figured that the mere fact of my having a second session closeted away with her would increase my advantage over my fellow prisoners. Even if I couldnt contrive actually to become an officially designated go-between, I figured, I could at least pretend.
Like a fool, I was too busy formulating my own grand plan to anticipate what actually happened next.
I had reached the threshold and was just about to cross over into the waiting darkness, when I was struck down from behind. I was shoved hard, and cleverly, so that I went down face first, sprawling across the open doorway.
If Id had even half a seconds warning Id have been able to get my hands spread, in such a way as to prevent my nose coming into contact with the floor, but I didnt. Once Id actually been hit, mere reflexes werent up to the job.
As the pain exploded in my mind I lost track of everything, except that two feet came down in the small of my back, one after the other. They didnt belong to the same person; two people bounded over my fallen body, each one using it as a springboard as they hurled themselves through the doorway.
That seemed to me to be adding insult to injury, twice over.
I fought with all my might to recover my presence of mind, and the capacity to act in spite of the agony, but I still needed to be picked up and helped to my feet. Yet again, it was Mortimer Gray who took the lead in rendering assistance, but this time Adam Zimmerman had come to help him.
I couldnt reply immediately to their inane inquiries as to whether I was all right but it must have been obvious that I wasnt. I was incandescent with pain and with rage.
I still couldnt see properly when Solantha Handsel dragged a struggling Alice through the doorway, but I knew that the person still missing had to be Niamh Horne the only member of our tiny community fully kitted out to see almost as well in near darkness as she did in ordinary light.
The sane and sensible thing to do would have been to stand clear and get myself into proper fighting trim, but fighting isnt a sane and sensible business. I was still near enough to the door to get in the bodyguards way, although I had to shake off a couple of restraining arms to make a good show of it.
Let her go, I said to Solantha Handsel, with all the menace I could muster.
She actually looked surprised.
Sorry, she said, but I had to do it that way, or wed have lost the opportunity.
Just let her go, I said.
Dont be stupid, she retorted, undiplomatically. She couldnt help the reflex that made her hold on to her captive just a little more tightly. That was when I hit her, right between the eyes.
Her nose didnt break, and I had the impression that it wouldnt have broken even if Id hit an inch lower, at the most vulnerable point. My knuckle was probably a good deal more vulnerable than any part
of her but she was used to the protection of state-of-the-art IT, and she wasnt expecting the uninsulated shock and pain that followed the punch. She wasnt expecting the kick in the belly either, but it would have hurt a lot more if I hadnt been barefoot.
The bodyguard let go of Alice, and collapsed in a heap that must have seemed even more undignified to the astonished observers than the heap Id been in when she hit me from behind.
Nobody else surged forward to grab Alice when Solantha Handsel let her go, but Niamh Horne had already returned from her excursion. The cyborg was blocking the doorway, so there was no opportunity for Alice to run into the darkness.
I did the best I could to get between Alice and trouble, but it wasnt possible to cover both directions at once. Solantha Handsel came slowly to her feet. Her wrathful anguish was a joy to behold.
Youre insane, she told me, in what might conceivably have been a dutiful manner. You dont know what youre dealing with.
No, I dont, I agreed, and neither do you. You might be the best trained fighting machine in your unviolent Utopia, but Ive actually been in real fights, without IT to help me. Youve proved that you can hit me in the dark and from behind, but Im still willing to find out what you can do when Im actually looking.
This isnt necessary, Tamlin, Lowenthals voice swiftly cut in. He probably intended his tone to be soothing.
Solantha Handsel wasnt listening. She probably figured that she had given fair warning, and was now at liberty to tear me apart. She got up and made as if to come at me, with her deadly hands ready and willing to chop me into little pieces, figuratively if not literally.
And that was when Christine Caine hit her from behind, with a full water bottle.
As improvised weapons went, the plastic bottle wasnt very useful, and Christine hadnt anything like the body mass or musculature of Lowenthals bodyguard but the blow was delivered with a will and the cyborg hadnt been expecting it. The most surprising thing about it, from my point of view, was the expression on Christines face, which faded almost immediately from sheer astonishment to something much more peculiar: a far deeper sense of puzzlement.