There was barely enough light from the widely spaced red fluorescents to make out the form of the lanky youth moving ahead of them. The otherworldly figure moved with a slightly bloody tinge to it from the safety lights. It was leading them who knew where? Maybe it was all a stunt of their captor’s. Kitten had experienced his sense of humor. Maybe he’d decided on some especially gruesome way of disposing of them, decided it would be safer to write off the fabulously profitable shipment—unlikely as it seemed. At any moment their guide could disappear around a turn, leaving them to wander in a maze of filthy underground passages among unseen terrors while Rose’s whining laugh echoed from hidden speakers.

She found herself dripping inside the fancy evening dress. It had not been designed for running over slippery floors in a hunched over position.

“Too frigging humid!” she muttered.

“Nonsense!” replied the disgustingly cheery voice of the Tolian. Excepting its lack of large land masses, Repler was much like his home world. Like many races, however, the Tolians did not go in for colonization on any significant scale.

“If it bothers you, just think how nice and dry you were a short while ago—on his Lordship’s playtable.”

“You’re not being funny,” Kitten replied, panting heavily now. No doubt the damn tunnel ran out under the ocean and they’d run like this all the way to Repler City. “How’d you like me to tie knots in your whiskers?”

“Have to catch me first.” The little alien was the only one whom the low ceiling didn’t inconvenience. He had plenty of room. His webbed feet made loud slapping sounds, like sponges, wherever they hit the trickle of water which flowed along the center of the floor.

“Where does this highway lead, anyway?” asked Mal. Kitten stared at him enviously. Despite his huge bulk, he didn’t even appear to be breathing hard. “And where does this water come from?”

The youngster’s voice drifted back from close ahead. “Condensation. The tunnel—this one, anyway—is a service access to the sewage plant. Both the intake for fresh water and the outlets for treated sewage are monitored from there. Each has an electrified gate at the end which is controlled by the master island defense computer. But they can both be shut down from the plant for up to an hour. If I can cut the power to the gates from the plant console, I can probably also powerdown the alarms without alerting anyone. That way, if someone comes in and inspects the system after we’ve started out, nothing will seem amiss. Unless he thinks to check the gate power lights, in which case we’d be finished. But since the entire system is automatic, that’s not likely. We shouldn’t have any trouble.”

“He says,” added Mal sardonically. Even he was beginning to pant a little now. “Assuming all this works, how do we get from the plant to the hoveraft?”

“One outtake tunnel comes out at the mouth of the harbor inlet. The gates at the end of each are designed more to keep out undesirable marine fauna than intelligent beings. It’s an efficient design but not very sophisticated. From the gate it’s a short swim to the landings. While powerful, the real island defenses are located further out. And don’t worry about the water. Compared to the seas of most worlds, the salt content here is very low. Of course, the treated sewage, while thoroughly sanitized and thinned, wouldn’t taste particularly good.”