157

Rex Tyler raises his pistol and takes careful aim at Barlow’s fleeing form. He fires and hits him, clipping his shoulder and making him stumble. However, this is the only bullet left in his pistol and he has no spare ammunition. You watch as the traitor, clutching his bleeding arm, reaches the waiting clan biker and climbs astride the pillion. As soon as he is aboard, the clansman winds back the throttle and the two of them disappear in a cloud of exhaust smoke along a side street bordering the plaza.

As the wounded traitor and his confederate disappear, Rickenbacker and Cutter come running across the plaza and take cover with you and Tyler behind the garbage cart. Quickly you recount what has happened here, and tell them how you are now absolutely convinced that Barlow was guilty.

Understandably, Rex Tyler is more than a little upset that you ever suspected him in the first place.

‘You’re right,’ says Cutter. ‘Barlow must have been a clan infiltrator. I’d hazard a guess that this whole attack was staged t’ get him out o’ here.’

From behind the metal lip of the garbage cart you survey the battle that is raging around the plaza. Most of the colonists have now armed themselves and taken cover, and they are putting up a worthy fight in defence of the vehicles. The few clansmen you do see are either dead or attempting to escape from the town, now that they have achieved their objective. All of them, that is, apart from one. He is a blond-haired thug, dressed in a studded leather vest and striped pants, who is busy hammering at the glass door panels of the DC1 school bus with the stock of his machine pistol. The sight of him senselessly attacking the door of the empty bus does not bother you unduly until you remember that there is one person still on board the bus—Kate—and your heart nearly stops with shock.

If you wish to open fire at the clansman before he gains entry to the bus and are able to do so, turn to 270.

If you do not wish to open fire at the clansman or if you are unable to do so, turn to 181.