Harmon jerked and half turned, but stopped as the knife prodded harder.
Nick's free hand swept around the older, heavier man and snatched his
pistol from its holster. He could feel the raised inlay on the frame as
he grasped it. Gold or platinum, he'd be willing to bet, but the gun
was no toy. With a practiced hand he thumbed off the safety and slid it
into his belt, feeling renewed confidence at being properly armed again.
"On up!" he hissed, his knife jabbing viciously, as the sucking
footsteps and muttered cursing of several men sounded close outside.
In the upper hallway a small battery lamp showed Harmon's pasty face
and slack jaw. He managed to turn his head far enough for one glance at
the muddy, blood-streaked apparition behind him.
"Who are you?" he quavered. "You can't do--"
Swift as a striking snake Nick's opened hand flashed out. The
overlord's head rocked at the impact.
"Shut up!" Nick's voice was low and deadly and his captured gun covered
the stairway. But the footsteps outside went on past.
"Do you want--" Harmon began, one hand reaching toward his coat pocket.
Nick saw the movement starting. Harmon uttered a squeal of pain as the
heavy gun barrel chopped down with bone-crushing force. He moaned and
clutched his injured hand while Nick returned the gun to his belt and
dipped into the overlord's pocket.
He whistled under his breath as he saw the small metal box, and a
feeling of uneasy longing swept through him. Day and night that box
had remained on a small table in the lower hallway, presided over
by an orderly who opened it to anyone who asked. The Gravinol was
given freely to any Mec, but its method of distribution was a clever
psychological trick to emphasize the dependence of each individual upon
the Martian Exploitation Company.
Automatically he dropped it inside his tattered shirt.
"To your ship, Harmon. Get moving!"
"But you can't--"
"I said move!"
The overlord gasped, more from the indignity than from pain, as Nick's
water-soaked boot met his trousers.
"I am The Man!" he tried to bluster.
"I know." Nick's answer was coldly venomous.
It was sheer bad luck that brought Colonel Hammer around the corner of
the building just as Nick prodded his captive out into the sea of mud,
and more bad luck that the camp's commander was nervously fingering a
night gun.
Nick felt the gun's light beam fall upon him, saw the red sighting
spot, and felt a stunning tug at his shoulder just as he threw himself
flat. Then Harmon's pistol rocked in his hand and Hammer's body
vanished in a shower of coruscating orange sparks.
Groggily Nick pushed himself to a sitting position. He tried to move
his arm and found it limp. His right hand explored the injury. It
seemed to be a flesh wound.
Harmon! The ship! All at once he recalled his mission. The overlord had
vanished in the darkness and there was no time to look for him. The
ship came first. His hand moved from the box of Gravinol to his pistol.
* * * * *
The shining hull lay in a depression blasted into the dry sand by its
own landing jets. Water glistened darkly around it now, and against
the gleaming metal the open entry port was a circle of blackness.
Nick's legs were heavy with clinging mud and weakness as he waded into
the pool, and only the knowledge that it was now or never kept him in
motion.
His eyes slitted and the gun came up as he glimpsed movement in the
water. There it was again, a flash of white with something darker
beside it.
"Nick!" a voice screamed. "Don't shoot!"
The cry was too late to stop his trigger finger, but he managed to
raise the gun so that the bullet whined off into the darkness.
"Nick!" she screamed again. "It's me!"
Some of the heaviness left his legs as he struggled toward her, and
his bullet-torn shoulder and gashed hands no longer seemed to pain so
acutely.
But what was that darker shadow beside her? His gun came up again.
"Who's there?" he demanded. The water that was only chest deep on him
was neck deep on her, but he could see that she was supporting her
companion.
"It's Merlo," she panted.
Nick's lips drew back in a snarl.
"No, Nick! Don't!" she gasped.
* * * * *
The Martian gained a footing and stood motionless, his head bowed. Nick
noticed that one long arm was holding a small package carefully above
water.
"Don't kill him!" Sue urged again. "He saved me once tonight."
Doubtfully Nick lowered his gun.
The Martian looked up and twittered briefly.
"He says thank you for his life, and that he was a fool," Susan
translated. Nick ignored him.
"Come on," he said impatiently.
The water grew shallower as they plodded toward the ship, until it was
only a thin layer over the deep mud.
"What's Blueface got in that package?" Nick asked, still suspiciously
keeping the Martian ahead of him.
"Yeast," she answered. "We found some when we raided the kitchen
building. Klev was with us then--Merlo had two Martians carry him--he
wanted to come."
The kitchen building was on the edge of camp where the fighting had
been heaviest. He glanced at her and saw a heavy regulation gun belt
dark against her bare white skin. That belt had not been a gift.
"Bad?" he asked.
She nodded silently.
"What happened to Klev?"
During those tortured days of waiting Nick had developed a strange
liking for the ancient, uncomplaining Martian.
"A half-track caught us. We had to scatter, and lost Klev in the
darkness."
"He's probably been killed by now. No time to look." Nick felt a sense
of shame as he said this. But it was true. The ship came first.
He glanced apprehensively to where the rim of one of the moons was
peeping over the horizon. Then they were in the shadow of the hull,
struggling through the mud beneath its outcurving surface toward the
portable metal stairway leading to the port. The stairway was tilted
to one side where its wheels had sunk deep into the soft mud, and the
steps were slippery with slime. Nick started up, holding his gun ready.
Suddenly a mocking laugh came from the entry port above. "Stay where
you are!" a voice said.
"Harmon!" Sue gasped.
The nozzle of a bulky flame gun appeared over the edge, followed by a
head. The nozzle swung downward as they clung helpless on the slippery
stairway. On the ground below Merlo made some involuntary motion and
the weapon swung to include him in its range.
"Any last words?" Harmon mocked.
Susan said something, using extremely nasty words that Nick had never
expected to hear from her lips.
"Such a sweet child," Harmon gloated. "And such a pity to break up your
tender scene."
Susan kept staring up, and suddenly her arm tightened convulsively
around Nick's waist.
Then she was screaming, screaming and sobbing and crying at the top of
her lungs.
"Please, please, Mr. Harmon!" she begged. "Don't kill me! I'll tell you
everything, all about the water! Only don't shoot me, please!"
Harmon leaned further out the port.
Nick was actually nauseated with disgust.
"Don't!" he snapped at her. "For Pete's sake don't give him that
satisfaction!"
Susan ignored him.
"Please, Mr. Harmon! I'm too young to die! I'll tell you everything!
Just get me away from this man!"
Harmon's shoulders appeared as he leaned out.
"Tell me now," he ordered. "Where is the--"
His sentence ended in a bellow of terror as a dark shape catapulted
down along the polished curve of the hull. Long arms clutched Harmon's
beefy neck in a death grip. For a moment two figures struggled and
wrestled furiously on the rim of the port.
[Illustration: _His sentence ended in a bellow of terror_]
Then Harmon lost his grip and they fell, missing the tilted stairway by
inches. Harmon emitted one choked wail as he whirled through the air
with the dark figure still clutching his throat. Mud spattered as they
struck, and in a last effort Harmon tripped the trigger of his weapon.
A sheet of flame billowed out, followed by a spreading cloud of steam
tinged with the stench of charred flesh. The two humans clung to the
stairway, sickened and gasping for breath.
"Nick, oh Nick!" Susan choked out. "He must have climbed up over the
tail fins."
"Who?" Nick was still half stunned.
"Klev." Susan was crying. "It was Klev. I had to hold Harmon's
attention and give him a chance."
Nick shook his head to clear it and once more started up the stairway
on hands and knees.
A searchlight came on in one of the towers, swept erratically across
the camp, flickered across them, moved back and stopped. Nick tried to
rush the last few steps, knowing that bullets would follow the light,
but his injured arm gave no support.
* * * * *
Then, amazingly, the beam shifted. He looked down. Merlo had gotten
up from where the detonation of the flame gun had tossed him. Still
carrying his package of yeast he was splashing through the mud, running
with no effort at caution. The searchlight operator, in doubt, followed
the moving target.
Seconds seemed like hours and inches like miles, but at last with Susan
pushing him from behind Nick tumbled into the airlock. Susan Jones
scrambled across his body.
Together they swung against the heavy circular door, and it was then
they had their last sight of Merlo.
The Martian paused directly in the light, shifted the small, precious
package to one armpit, and clawed hastily at his living clothing.
"My gun!" Nick said. "The one he took from me below."
Merlo fired clumsily and the blue flare of the bullet was low on the
guard tower, but the light wavered and swung away for an instant. It
swung back, but the Martian had vanished in the darkness. Then it
traversed once more to bathe the closing port in its glare. A stream of
bullets clanged and clattered against the steel as they wrenched the
locking lugs into place.
Nick staggered to the control chair. Automatically his hand reached for
the converter switches and found them on. The converters were already
warmed, as though Harmon had been planning a solo get-away in case the
battle went badly for his forces. Still only half realizing that it was
the similarity to the fighter rockets of the War days that made the
spaceship controls seem so familiar, Nick opened the fuel feeds to the
main tubes and his hand hovered over the ignitor key.
"Ready?" he asked.
Susan threw herself into the acceleration cushions.
"Blast it!" she urged. "Quick, before they turn a proton cannon on us!"
Nick's finger hit the key and the world went black.
His stomach was twisting in the agonies of acceleration cramps. His
shoulder thumped and throbbed, and the gashes the barbs of the barrier
had left on his body felt like lines of fire. Some sharp cornered
object was wedged between his side and the seat belt, poking at his
bruised ribs. Clumsily, his one usable hand lacerated in his struggle
with the barrier, he fished it out. His hand failed to grasp it
properly and the box of Gravinol slipped through his fingers and fell
to the floor.
He stared down at it, and there was longing in his look. In that little
box was relief from pain. But other things too were in that box.
Slavery, for instance.
He looked a long time, then slowly shook his head.
"Ease off the throttles," Susan spoke. "We're out."
He did so, aiming the cross-hairs at the green star of Earth and
coupling in the gyros.
"It'll be hell back there without Gravinol," he reflected aloud.
"You'll never know how bad it can be."
Susan brought out the first aid kit and gently wiped the dirt and
clotted blood from his wounded shoulder as he slumped in the pilot's
seat.
"A few will survive and be cured. The strong ones," she reminded him.
"Ouch! That hurts!" he protested, and sat up suddenly as antiseptic
stung in the wound.
"You did, dear," she replied with feminine irrelevance.