I felt like an actor awaiting his cue in the wings of some turgid
drama the plot of which he did not know. Venza was near the head of
the incline. Some of the women and children were on it. A woman
screamed. Her child had slipped from her hand; bounded up over the
rail and fallen. Hardly fallen--floated down to the ground, with
flailing arms and legs, landing in the dark ferns unharmed. Its
terrified wail came up.
There was a confusion on the incline. Venza, still on the deck, seemed
to send a look of appeal to the turret. My cue?
I slid my hand to the light switchboard. It was near my knees. I
pulled a switch. The blue lit deck beneath the turret went dark.
I recall an instant of horrible, tense silence, and in the gloom
beside me I was aware of Moa moving. I felt a thrill of instinctive
fear--would she plunge that knife into me?
The silence of the darkened deck was broken with a confusion of
sounds. A babble of voices; a woman passenger's scream; shuffling
feet; and above it all, Miko's roar:
"Stand quiet! Everyone! No movement!"
On the descending incline there was chaos. The disembarking women were
clinging to the gang rail; some of them had evidently surged forward
and fallen. Down on the ground in the purple-shadowed starlight, I
could vaguely see the chained line of men. They too, were in
confusion, trying to shove themselves toward the fallen women.
Miko roared: "Light those tubes! Gregg Haljan! By the Almighty, Moa,
are you up there? What is wrong? The light tubes--"
Dark drama of unknown plot! I wondered if I should try and leave the
turret. Where was Anita? She had been down there on the deck when I
flung out the lights.
I think twenty seconds would have covered it all. I had not moved. I
thought, "Is Snap concerned with this?"
Moa's knife could have stabbed me. I felt her lunge against me. And
suddenly I was gripping her, twisting her wrist. But she flung the
knife away. Her strength was almost the equal of my own. Her hand went
for my throat, and with the other hand she was fumbling.
The deck abruptly sprang into light again. Moa had found the switch
and threw it back.
She fought me as I tried to reach the switch. I saw down on the deck.
Miko was gazing up at us. Moa panted, "Gregg--stop! If he sees you
doing this, he'll kill you."
The scene down there was almost unchanged. I had answered my cue. To
what purpose? I saw Anita near Miko. The last of the women were on the
plank.
I had stopped struggling with Moa. She sat back, panting. And then she
called:
"Sorry, Miko. It will not happen again."
Miko was in a towering rage. But he was too busy to bother with me;
his anger swung on those nearest him. He shoved the last of the women
violently at the incline. She bounded over. Her body, with the gravity
pull of only a few Earth pounds, sailed in an arc and dropped near
the swaying line of men.
Miko swung back. "Get out of my way!" A sweep of his huge arm knocked
Anita sidewise. "Prince, damn you, help me with those boxes!"
The frightened stewards were lifting the boxes, square metal storage
chests each as long as a man, packed with food, tools, and equipment.
"Here, get out of my way! All of you!"
My breath came again; Anita nimbly retreated before Miko's angry rush.
He dashed at the stewards. Three of them held a box. He took it from
them; raised it at the top of the incline, poised it over his head an
instant, with his massive arms like gray pillars beneath it; and flung
it. The box catapulted, dropped; and then passing the _Planetara's_
gravity area, it sailed in a long flat arc over the forest glade and
crashed into the purple underbrush.
"Give me another!"
The stewards pushed another at him. Like an angry Titan, he flung it.
And another. One by one the chests sailed out and crashed.
"There is your food. Go pick it up! Haljan, make ready to ring us
away!"
On the deck lay the dead body of Rance Rankin, which the stewards had
carried out. Miko seized it: flung it.
"There! Go to your last resting place!"
And the other bodies, Balch, Blackstone, Captain Carter, Johnson--Miko
flung them all. And the course masters and those of our crew who had
been killed.
The passengers were all on the ground now. It was dim down there. I
tried to distinguish Venza, but could not. I could see Dr. Frank's
figure at the end of the chained line of men. The passengers were
gazing in horror at the bodies hurtling over them.
"Ready, Haljan?"