CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

ANOTHER VAGUE MANTIS law: When in Doubt, Give Yourself an Escape Hatch.

Alex had set up the escape hatch immediately after Sten had returned from his meeting in the woods with Mathias. He had no prog but knew something was about to come down.

Since they were quartered in the Temple itself, the back door had consisted of two strands of granite-dyed climbing thread, hung out one window.

Inside a nearby urn were the figure-8 descenders and locking caribiniers necessary to get down that thread in a hurry. Both Sten and Alex had taken to wearing swiss-seat harness under their uniforms, hoping that when it hit the turbines they would be long gone off world.

They were wrong but they were ready .

So. when the howling/mourning for Theodomir started, Sten and Alex were in motion. The first twenty ambitious Companions who'd come hurtling through the door had run into one of Alex's less pleasant surprises.

He'd hand-cast directional vee-mines, hooked them to sensors, and mounted them on either side of the portal. They made a significant mess, enough of a mess to delay the next wave of Companions.

The pause allowed Alex and Sten to hook the descenders onto the thread and back out the window. Neither of them found great exit lines as they pushed off, straight down the vertical wall of the Temple.

No one but a fool springs ten or twenty meters per leap on a long rappel—no one but a fool or an outgunned Mantis soldier.

They hit the ground at the bottom, Sten slamming down the last fifteen meters and thudding to safety with an oof. Then they shed their harness and were running.

"C'mon, lad," Alex urged. "W'nae hae truck wi' thae fruit-bars nae more."

And then they were out the gates of the Temple and running toward the town below, swinging into the backstreets toward Sanctus' landing field, where, Sten desperately hoped, Otho had the lighter waiting.

"Dinna worry," Alex flung back cheerily. "A' w' hae t'do is get

away frae th' fanatics, gie oursel's offworld, an' then nae worries save th' wrath ae Mahoney an' th' Eternal Emp'ror."

And then a platoon of Companions was running down the alley. They spotted the two men and ran forward. Alex went down on one knee, weapon coming out of its pouch, and double-handed autofire into the men.

Then they were back up, running into a side passageway and Sten thinking, If I can only live through the next fifty minutes I can handle anybody's anger.