"Gregg, you're safe!"
She had heard the camp corridors resounding with the shouts that Wilks
and Haljan were fighting. She had come upon a suit and helmet by the
manual emergency lock, had run out through the lock, confused, with
her only idea to stop Wilks and me from fighting. Then she had seen
one of us killed. Impulsively, barely knowing what she was doing, she
mounted the stairs, frantic to find if I were alive.
"Anita!"
Miko was coming fast! She had not seen him; for she had no thought of
brigands--only the belief that either Wilks or I had been killed.
But now, as we stood together on the rocks near the observatory
platform, I could see the towering figure of Miko nearing the top of
the stairs.
"Anita, that's Miko! We must run!"
Then I saw my projector. It lay in a bowl-like depression quite near
us. I jumped for it. And as I tore loose from Anita, she leaped down
after me. It was a broken bowl in the rocks, some six feet deep. It
was open on the side facing the stairs--a narrow, ravinelike gully,
full of gray, broken, tumbled rock masses. The little gully was
littered with crags and boulders. But I could see out through it.
Miko had come to the head of the stairs. He stopped there, his great
figure etched sharply by the Earthlight. I think he must have known
that Coniston was the one who had fallen over the cliff, as my helmet
and Coniston's were different enough for him to recognize which was
which. He did not know who I was, but he did know me for an enemy.
He stood now at the summit, peering to see where we had gone. He was
no more than fifty feet from us.
"Anita, lie down."
I pulled her down on the rocks. I took aim with my projector. But I
had forgotten our helmet lights. Miko must have seen them just as I
pulled the trigger. He jumped sidewise and dropped, but I could see
him moving in the shadows to where a jutting rock gave him shelter. I
fired, missing him again.