"I made a promise to go on talking. And I believe in what I'm doing."
"You know what that will mean." He could hear the quiver and the
breathing of her. "People may be hurt, your own people. We don't want
trouble. We can't afford trouble, with the Piruts getting stronger.
It'll mean you'll be punished, maybe even--killed."
That gave him a cold twinge for a moment. Then he thought of Jakk and
shrugged.
"It doesn't matter," he said, and started out.
The Third Officer came in. There were five men with him, and one of
them was the Captain, wearing the gun of authority.
The Captain said, "I'm sorry, Kirk. I heard a lot of what you said; too
much to dare turn you loose just now. Perhaps in solitary we can talk
sense into you."
Kirk stood quite still, not moving anything but his eyes. The four Hans
were big and they had knives. Kirk shrugged and fell in with them. The
girl walked ahead, between the Captain and the Third.
Nobody said anything. They went together up the stone steps.
* * * * *
They had taken the wounded off the wall, out of the wind. The rock
below was clean of bodies, and the last of the men were coming back up
the ladder.
Kirk felt queer. He wasn't like himself at all. It was as though he had
fragments of ice inside his head, all jumbled. Then suddenly they fell
into place, clear and frozen and unalterable, without any help from him
at all.
He moved, very fast. Faster than ever before in his life, caught the
Captain's gun.
His two hands thrust out, one against the Captain, the other against
the Third, and sent them staggering. He charged through between them,
gathering the yellow girl in to his chest firing as he went. The
antique gun went dead on the third shot, and he threw it away.
A knife slashed across his shoulders, but it was short. Men began
to yell. He knocked one away from the ladder head and pushed the
struggling girl over and let her drop, so that she had to catch the
rungs. He whirled, swinging, and sent two men sprawling back into the
ones behind. Then he leaped over, dropping down the side of the ladder
hand over hand.
He passed the girl, climbed onto the ladder behind her so that no one
could sling stones at him, and began pulling her down by the foot. She
tried kicking, but it was a long drop to the rock, and after she'd
slipped a couple of times she stopped that and went on down.
Men were howling at him from above. They started to climb onto the
ladder. Kirk yelled at them, threatening to throw the girl off. They
stopped. Presently Kirk felt the cold rock underfoot.
The minute he was off the ladder a man climbed over the wall and
started down. Kirk yelled at him to go back, then got hold of the
bottom of the ladder and pushed out. The yellow girl got out her knife
again and slashed at him. She hadn't opened her mouth once.
Kirk dropped. The knife bit his shoulder, not very deep. He
straightened up suddenly, swinging his open palm. It caught the girl
over the ear. She fell backward away from him, rolling over on the
rock. The knife flew out of her hand. Kirk heard it skitter along and
then vanish over the gully edge.
He pushed hard on the ladder. It gave, and the man at the top began
scrambling up again, fast. He only just made it, dangling half of him
in the air, when the ladder fell. The light aluminum struts it was made
of sent clashing echoes flying in the wind.
It was the only ladder they had. They'd have to bring one from one
of the other pillboxes before they could climb down and get it. Kirk
looked up at the men lining the wall, yelling, waving things.
Just about here Pa must have stood, looking up.
He turned and hauled the dazed girl to her feet and started off down
the tongue of rock. He didn't hurry. There was no need to hurry. The
young strength of the girl was pressed against him, thigh and hip and
chest. It burned, in some queer way.
He watched the yellow hairs rub and tangle with his golden ones. The
muscle started twitching under his eye again.
He had to cuff her twice more to keep her quiet, before they were
safely off the naked rock. He got her down the length of two gullies,
well out of sight of the pillbox. She was still a little groggy, and
very busy keeping her footing in the pebble drifts. They started down a
third cut that angled off. Then, quite suddenly, she fell.
Kirk stopped. He put out a hand to help her up, and then took it back
again. He looked at his feet and surlily, "Get up."
"I can't. Where are you going?"
"I don't know. Just somewhere to think, and plan. I've got to figure
this out."
She thought about that. He could see her wide golden shoulders tremble.
He wanted to touch them. After a while she said:
"Why did you take me? Why won't you let me go?"
"They'd have killed me on the rock if I hadn't had you. And when I go
back...."