MacVickers looked at the basket of spongy synthetic food, and shook his
head.
The floor dipped and swung. There was a frightening, playful violence
about it, like the first soft taps of a tiger's paw. Loris looked up at
the glass roof with the black shapes beyond.
"They get the pure air," he said. "Our ventilator pipes are only a few
inches wide, lest we crawl up through them."
Pendleton said, rather loudly, "The swine breathe through the skin, you
know. All their sense organs, sight and hearing...."
"Shut up," snarled Janu. "Stop talking for time."
The sprawled men on the bunks drew themselves slowly tight, breathing
hard and deep in anticipation. And Birek rose.
MacVickers faced them, Birek and the rest. There was no lift in his
heart. He was cold and sodden, like a chuted ox watching the pole-axe
fall. He said, with a bitter, savage quiet,
"You're a lot of bloody cowards. You, Birek. You're scared of the death
creeping over you, and the only way you can forget the fear is to make
someone else suffer.
"It's the same with all of you. You have to trample me down to your own
level, break me for the sake of your souls as much as your bodies."
He looked at the numbers of them, at Birek's huge impervious bulk and
his great fists. He touched his silver collar, remembering the agony of
the shock through it.
"And I will break. You know that, damn you."
He gave back three paces and set his feet. "All right. Come on, Birek.
Let's get it over with."
* * * * *
The Venusian came toward him across the heaving floor. Loris still
looked at his feet and Pendleton's eyes were agonized. MacVickers wiped
his hands across his buttocks. The palms were filmed and slick with oil
from the can he had handled.
There was no use to fight. Birek was twice his size, and he couldn't
be hurt anyway. The diamond-sheathe even screened off the worst of the
electric current, being a non-conductor.
That gave the dying men an advantage. But even if they had spirit
enough left by that time to try anything, the hatches were still locked
tight by air-pressure and the sheer numbers of their suffering mates
would pull them down. Also, the Jovies were as strong as four men.
Non-conductor. Sheathed skin. Birek's shoulders tensing for the first
blow. Sweat trying to break through the film of oil on his palms, the
slippery feel of his hands as he clenched them.
Birek's fist lashed out. MacVickers dodged under it, looking for an
opening, dreading the useless agony of impact. The bell lurched wildly.
A guard moved abruptly overhead. The motion caught MacVickers' eye.
Something screamed sharply in his head: Pendleton's voice saying, "They
breathe through the skin. All their sense organs...."
He sensed rather than saw Birek's fist coming. He twisted, enough to
take the worst of it on his shoulder. It knocked him halfway across the
deck. And then the current came on.
It was weak, but it made him jerk and twitch. He scrambled up on
the pitching deck and started to speak. Birek was coming again,
leisurely, smiling. Then, quite suddenly, the hatch cover clanged
open, signalling the change of the shifts. MacVickers stood still for
a second. Then he laughed, a queer little chuckle, and made a rush for
the hatch.