Hellstrom's Hive

Janvert guessed he’d waited five minutes before fear overcame his fatigue. He wasn’t really rested, but he had to go on. He was breathing easier, but the ache remained in his legs; there was a lancing pain in his side when he took too deep a breath, and the arches of his feet felt as though knives were cutting them, a consequence of running barefoot. He knew his body could take little more of this driving punishment before collapse. He had to go out there and find an elevator. He straightened, intending to open the door, and the corner of his left eye caught a flicker of movement down the tunnel. Pursuers carrying guns rounded the corner below him, but their weapons were not raised as they climbed, and they reacted with a brief moment of shock that saved Janvert. His weapon had been held across his left arm as he reached for the door’s wheel latch and he had only to press the stud, which his hand did almost of itself. The figures below him collapsed as the bap-hum filled the tunnel.

In falling, one of the pursuers raised a pistol and fired one shot that hit a light fixture below Janvert and sent a searing shard of some shattered material into his cheek. His left hand, clapped reflexively against the wound, came away with the glittering shard and a bright smear of blood.

Janvert had no way of knowing if the weapon in his hand worked through walls, but the deepest panic he’d known thus far dictated his next actions. He lifted the weapon, depressed the stud on it, and fanned it across the door in front of him before opening it.

Six figures lay in a tangled sprawl beyond the door as it opened, and one of them held a nickel-plated .45 automatic with carved ivory grips. Janvert lifted it from relaxed fingers as he stepped into the room. He glanced around, saw what appeared to be a long, narrow barracks with triple-tiered bunks around the walls. The only occupants were the six figures on the floor—all males, all nude, all but one bald, and all of them breathing. So the weapon only knocked people out when a solid barrier attenuated its force. Janvert nodded to himself. He had a weapon in each hand now, and one of them felt reassuringly familiar.