Cyber Rogues Read Free

begin following Cummings down the short ladder below the floor hatch. “I’ll bet fifty bucks on it. Paggett is only there until he retires Earthside and until then he’ll just go on rubber-stamping. When he goes, Cawther’s bound to take over. Then it’ll all be different. I give it twelve months at the most.” Cummings had passed through the exit to the surface.
    As Fields turned to follow, Paskoe began the descent from the upper cabin, pausing halfway to secure and check the hatch above his head. “Anyhow, I’m not interested,” he declared, nodding to himself and stepping down. “I’m only here for another four. Then it’s back home for me. A year’s banked back pay and a few months around Europe with Cher. Wowie! You can take care of Cawther. Have fun. I sure will.”
    “Europe?” Cummings, who was waiting for them outside, came in on the circuit. “That’s where you’re going?”
    “All over,” Paskoe said. “We never did get to see more than a few of the tourist traps. This time we’ll do it right. Three months at least. Cher’s especially keen on Germany.” They were crossing the gap of about thirty feet that separated the crawler from Chauverier’s. Paskoe and Cummings were side by side, with Fields following a short distance behind.
    “I was in Germany a couple years back,” Fields’s voice came through. “Saw some of Poland too. There’s a place there you ought to see if you get the chance . . . down south. Krakow I think it was called.”
    “What’s there?” Paskoe asked.
    “Salt mines. They go right back to the Middle Ages. Man, are they big.”
    “Salt mines?” Cummings sounded mystified as he and Paskoe came abreast of the other crawler and moved around it toward where the entrance was located. “What’s so special about salt mines? I thought they were places the Russians used to send people they didn’t like.”
    “Those are different,” Fields replied. “There’s a whole cathedral down there way underground. All carved out of solid salt crystal. Everything’s salt—the altar, the chapels, the statues, even the lights. It’s fantastic. And they’ve got—”
    The universe blanked out.
    “What in Christ! . . .” a voice yelled.
    Cummings had just reached the door with Paskoe close behind. Fields was a few feet away, just beyond the end of the vehicle.
    Everything around them vanished abruptly into an opaque sheet of gray. At the same moment Paskoe felt the ground shudder beneath his feet. The mass of the crawler above them lurched visibly as if it had been struck an immense blow on the opposite side. For a moment he had the sickening feeling that it was going to topple over on top of them.
    A titanic blast of dust, debris and boulders had smashed into the far side of the vehicle and sprayed past it on every side. Mercifully they had been in its lee shadow. Just a few seconds earlier and they would have been caught unprotected. And just as suddenly it was gone.
    Paskoe was standing frozen to the spot, still with no idea of what had happened. In front of him Cummings was clinging to the handrail by the door, his face ashen through his visor and his arm gesturing weakly toward a point behind Paskoe’s shoulder.
    “Jerry! . . .” Cumming’s voice came through in a strangled gasp. “Jerry’s gone!” Paskoe turned and stared dazedly at the spot where, a few seconds previously, Fields had been standing, just beyond the crawler’s protective shadow. There was nobody there.
    And then the blast came again, like the discharge of a gigantic shotgun that fired moonrock. And again, and again, and again . . . and again. Paskoe found himself on the ground pressing himself against the vehicle’s tracks while the concussions thudded through his body, and the crawler trembled under the repeated impacts of boulders cannoning off its sides and spinning crazily away into the maelstrom of dust. His helmet touched the structure. A sound like a building collapsing onto an