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a big joke on everybody? Especially me._ Ahead was the large area that had been one of the major junction points of the tunnel network. This was the area that the Nipe had taken over to build his home-away-from-home. Here were his workshops, his laboratories, his storerooms. And somewhere here was the Nipe. He came out of the tunnel into another passenger-loading area. Just to his left was another short stairway that led up to a slightly higher level. He moved slowly and quietly. He didn't want to fight down here on the tracks, and he didn't want to be caught just yet. Cautiously he lifted himself to the platform where long-gone passengers had once waited for long-gone trains. The quality of the illumination at the head of the stairs was different from that which he had been used to for the past three hours. He lifted off the infra-red goggles. Enough light spilled over from the Nipe's lair to give him illumination to see by. Silently, he put the goggles on the floor of the platform. He wouldn't need them again. Then, step by step, he walked up the concrete stairway. At the head of the stairs, he paused to get his bearings. The illumination was not bright, but it was enough to-- "Barbell! He's heard you! Watch it!" But Stanton had already heard the movement of the Nipe. He jerked off the communicator and threw it down the stairs behind him. He wanted no encumbrances now! He ran quickly out into the center of the big underground room, away from the open stairwell. And then, as fast as any express train that had ever moved through these subterranean ways, the Nipe came around a corner thirty feet away, his four violet eyes gleaming, his limbs rippling beneath his centipede-like body. From fifteen feet away, he launched himself through the air, his outstretched hands ready to kill. But Stanton's marvelous neuromuscular system was already in action. At this stage of the game, it would be utter suicide to let the Nipe get in close. Stanton couldn't fend off eight grasping hands with his own two. He leaped to one side, and the Nipe got his first surprise in ten years when Stanton's fist slammed against the side of his snouted head, knocking him in the direction opposite that in which Stanton had moved. The Nipe landed, turned, and charged back toward the man. This time he reared up, using his two rearmost pairs of limbs for locomotion, while the two forward pairs were held out, ready to ki
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