It was a passenger deck. I could see frightened faces peering out of
cubicles as I ran past. Behind me, the pursuit grew louder, nearer.
I slammed open a bulkhead and found another walk leading upward toward
the astrogation blisters in the topmost point of the _Queen_.
Behind me, I caught a glimpse of a ship's officer running, armed with a
stun-pistol. My breath rasped in my throat and the plastiskin sheath on
my body shifted sickeningly.
"_You there! Halt!_" The voice was high-pitched and excited. I flung
through another bulkhead hatch and out into the dorsal blister. I
seemed to be suspended between Earth and sky. The stars glittered
through the steelglass of the blister, and the desert lay below,
streaked with searchlights and covered with tiny milling figures. The
warning light on the control bunker turned from amber to red as I
watched, chest heaving.
"_It is H minus three_," the timer said. "_Rig ship for space._"
I slammed the hatch shut and spun the wheel lock. I stood filled with
a mixture of triumph and fear. They could never get me out of the
ship in time now--but I would have to face blast away in the blister,
unprotected. A shock that could kill....
Through the speaker, the captain's talker snapped orders: "_Abandon
pursuit! Too late to dump him now. Pick him up after acceleration is
completed._" And then maliciously, knowing that I could hear: "_Scrape
him off the deck when we're in space._ That _kind can't take much_."
I felt a blaze of red fury. _That_ kind. The Earthbound kind! I wanted
to live, then, more than I had ever wanted to live before. To make a
liar out of that sneering, superior voice. To prove that I was as good
as all of them.
"_It is H minus one_," said the timer.
Orders filtered through the speaker.
"_Outer valves closed. Inner valves closed._"
"_Minus thirty seconds. Condition red._"
"_Pressure in the ship. One-third atmosphere._"
"_Twenty seconds._"
"_Ship secure for space._"
"_Ten, nine, eight_--"