Free Single Combat by Dean Ing Page B

not want that kid coming around while in a rover's care. There was no proof that the kid was a reb; he might've panicked and run down here by sheer accident.
    Yeah—and there might be no water in the Pacific Ocean.
    There was only one way to haul a limp body through a doughnut; pull him after you. Quantrill gripped the boy's clothing and hauled. He did not realize the boy's trouserleg was hung up until he'd pulled the vertical timber sideways, and then he was scrambling as fast as he could, thrusting his legs into the annulus, taking a better grip on the boy's jacket while feeling for traction ribs with his feet. Staring at the dirt that dribbled down from that column was not going to slow it down one little bit.
    He found purchase against the ribs and backed furiously. He could feel thumps on the tough fabric; hear the hiss of dirt cascading down on it. If the whole thing gave way it would burst the doughnut like a wet bag.
    "—Q. Report, Q. Report, Q," he heard as he scrambled backward.
    "Stop honking," he panted an ancient routine. "Pedaling—as fast—as I can. You copy, Control?"
    "We copy, Q," he heard as he ripped the youth from the annulus and rolled under the limp form. Under these circumstances, the first step to a fireman's carry was getting the load to roll over on you. "Regulars moved the wrong piece, Q. Are you trapped?"
    "Don't know." This confusion might be a break. In all his missions for S & R, Quantrill had never actually
saved
a life. His real function made the idea slightly ridiculous, and as Quantrill moved toward the stairwell he was grinning again, licking sweat from his upper lip. But he mustn't be seen with his burden, and, "Suggest you tell regular crews to clear out above," he grunted. "Now, Control. It's like the bottom half of an hourglass down here, shit's raining down steadily." He was exaggerating only a little.
    "Report on those munitions, Q."
    Quantrill heard someone call from above, flung the unconscious boy behind an abandoned forklift at the first basement landing, raced below again. "No chemical munitions, Control. Old GI suits, stacks of timbers, ammo cans. Nothing that looks like ceebee or nuke stuff."
    "Blow it, Q."
    He stared at the doughnut; licked his lips. The annulus was distorted now, almost closed at the far end. "Don't know if I can get there again, Control. The whole fucking rig is caving—"
    "Blow it, Q. Set it for a half-hour. Nobody will be inside by then."
    "Except me," he snarled, and felt for the doughnut's release valve.
    He played the valve by ear, ready to sprint for the stairwell, hearing soft rustlings past the hole. Finally he could clamber over the pillowy fabric, saw that there was barely room to squeeze between an angled piece of shoring and the outside of the foundation wall. The chemlamp on his wrist was his only light source. A hundred tons of earth had fallen into the makeshift munitions room in the past five minutes, and a timber groaned only an arm's length away.
    Quantrill drew his chiller; clasped it to his breast. Whatever happened, he was not going to suffocate. He reached his pack and with one hand he stripped the timer from its velcrolok clasp. He placed the pack against the nearest ATM canister. He did not bother to dump the 'candy bars' from their pocket; inside each wrapper was a tenth-kilo of explosive. He grasped the detonator buttons in his teeth, unwound them like a tasseled cord from the timer body, blew sweat from his brow, stuck three of the tassel buttons through innocent-looking wrappers into doughy plastique.
    When the timber gave way, he just managed to flatten himself against the foundation so that the cascading earth buried him only to his knees.
    "Control, you suck," he breathed, running his thumb along the ID plate on the butt of his chiller. Then he reached forward, groped blindly into the fresh earthfall, and at last felt the timer. He set the damned thing by feel, unwilling to move it, murmuring every outrageous phrase he