The Corridors of Time Read Online Free PDF

gate.
    ‘The energy field slows material objects too,’ Storm saidbleakly. ‘Your bullet had too little residual velocity, at this range.’
    The other sled got moving in pursuit. Its black-clad riders hunched low under the bulwarks. Lockridge could just see the tops
     of their helmets. ‘We got a lead on them,’ he said. ‘They can’t go any faster, can they?’
    ‘No, but they will observe where we emerge, go back, and tell Brann,’ Storm answered. ‘A mere identification of me will be
     bad enough.’ Her eyes were ablaze, nose flared, breasts rising and falling; but she spoke more coolly than he had known men
     to do when they trained with live ammunition. ‘We shall have to counterattack. Give me your pistol. When I stand to draw their
     fire – no, be quiet, I will be shielded – you shoot.’
    She whipped the sled about and sent it hurtling toward the other one. The thing grew in Lockridge’s vision with nightmare
     slowness. And those were actual men he must kill. He kicked away nausea. They were trying to kill him and Storm, weren’t they?
     He knelt beneath the sideshield and held his rifle ready.
    The encounter exploded around him. Storm surged to her feet, the energy gun in her left hand, the Webley barking in her right.
     Yards away, the other sled veered. Two firebeams struck at her, throwing sparks and sheets of radiance, moving toward convergence.
     And a slug whined from some noiseless, stubby-barreled weapon that one of the black-uniformed men also held.
    Lockridge jumped up. In the corner of an eye he saw Storm, erect in a geyser of red, blue, yellow flame, hair tossed about
     her shoulders by the thundering energies, shooting and laughing. He looked down upon the enemy, straight into a pale narrow
     countenance. The bullet gun swiveled toward him. He fired exactly twice.
    The other sled passed by and on down the corridor.
    Echoes died away. The air lost its sting. There was only the bone-deep song of unknown forces, the smell of them and the flimmer
     on a gateway.
    Storm looked after the sprawled bodies as they departed, picked her life indicator off the bench, and nodded. ‘You got them,’
     she whispered. ‘Oh, nobly shot!’ She threw down the instrument, seized Lockridge and kissed him with bruising strength.
    Before he could react, she let him go and turned the sled around. Her color was still high, but she spoke with utter coolness:
     ‘It would be a waste of time and charges to disintegrate them. The Rangers would still know quite well that they met their
     end at Warden hands. But no more than that should be obvious: provided we get out of the corridor before anyone else chances
     along.’
    Lockridge slumped onto a bench and tried to comprehend what had happened.
    He didn’t come out of his daze until Storm halted the sled and urged him off. She leaned over and activated the controls.
     It started away. ‘To its proper station,’ she explained briefly. ‘If Brann knew that the killers of his men had entered from
     1964, and found an extra conveyance here, he would know the whole story. This way, now.’
    They approached the gate. Storm chose a line from the first group, headed 1175. ‘Here you must be careful,’ she said. ‘We
     could easily get lost from each other. Walk exactly on this marker.’ She reached behind her and closed fingers on his. He
     was still too shocked to appreciate that contact as much as he knew, dimly, he would otherwise.
    Following her, he passed through the curtain. She let him go, and he saw that they were in a room like the one from which
     they had entered. Storm opened the cabinet, consulted what he guessed might be a timepiece, and nodded in a satisfied way.
     Taking out a pair of bundles done up in a shaggy coarse-woven blue material, she handed them to him and closed the cabinet.
     They went up the spiral ramp.
    At the end, she opened another turf trapdoor with her control tube and closed it again behind them. The concealment was