They grabbed hold, tugging together. Nothing happened. The hatch
refused to budge.
"Get a crowbar," the Pilot said.
"Hasn't anyone got a blaster?" Gross looked frantically around. "Damn
it, blast it open!"
"Pull," Kramer grated. "Pull together."
"Are you at the hatch?" the toneless voice came, drifting and eddying
through the corridors of the ship. They looked up, staring around
them. "I sense something nearby, outside. A ship? You are leaving, all
of you? Kramer, you are leaving, too? Very unfortunate. I had hoped we
could talk. Perhaps at some other time you might be induced to
remain."
"Open the hatch!" Kramer said, staring up at the impersonal walls of
the ship. "For God's sake, open it!"
There was silence, an endless pause. Then, very slowly, the hatch slid
back. The air screamed out, rushing past them into space.
One by one they leaped, one after the other, propelled away by the
repulsive material of the suits. A few minutes later they were being
hauled aboard the pursuit ship. As the last one of them was lifted
through the port, their own ship pointed itself suddenly upward and
shot off at tremendous speed. It disappeared.
Kramer removed his helmet, gasping. Two sailors held onto him and
began to wrap him in blankets. Gross sipped a mug of coffee,
shivering.
"It's gone," Kramer murmured.
"I'll have an alarm sent out," Gross said.
"What's happened to your ship?" a sailor asked curiously. "It sure
took off in a hurry. Who's on it?"
"We'll have to have it destroyed," Gross went on, his face grim. "It's
got to be destroyed. There's no telling what it--what _he_ has in
mind." Gross sat down weakly on a metal bench. "What a close call for
us. We were so damn trusting."
"What could he be planning," Kramer said, half to himself. "It doesn't
make sense. I don't get it."
* * * * *
As the ship sped back toward the moon base they sat around the table
in the dining room, sipping hot coffee and thinking, not saying very
much.
"Look here," Gross said at last. "What kind of man was Professor
Thomas? What do you remember about him?"
Kramer put his coffee mug down. "It was ten years ago. I don't
remember much. It's vague."
He let his mind run back over the years. He and Dolores had been at
Hunt College together, in physics and the life sciences. The College
was small and set back away from the momentum of modern life. He had
gone there because it was his home town, and his father had gone there
before him.
Professor Thomas had been at the College a long time, as long as
anyone could remember. He was a strange old man, keeping to himself
most of the time. There were many things that he disapproved of, but
he seldom said what they were.
"Do you recall anything that might help us?" Gross asked. "Anything
that would give us a clue as to what he might have in mind?"