Edri had begun to read from the notebook. He was going fast, but taking
desperate pains to make each syllable clear. Quorn hung tensely over
his dials. Trehearne sat motionless, except that his muscles quivered.
Sweat ran in his eyes. He was tired. He was so tired that Quorn, three
feet away, looked as blurred and indistinct as though he were lost in
the haze of distance. Edri's voice went on, and on, and on.
Quorn said hoarsely, "The cruiser has picked us up. They're already
trying to jam us. Hurry up."
Edri's face became that of a hunted thing. His voice rose shrill,
racing desperately. He turned the last page. He finished it, and then
he went back to the beginning and started to repeat. Quorn stood up.
"It isn't any use, we're blanked out. That means the cruiser's close,
close enough to...."
He didn't have time to get the rest of the words out. The skiff
was shaken suddenly as by a giant hand. Quorn was flung against a
bulkhead, and Trehearne lay on the floor. Only Edri, hanging on to the
transmitter, still talked.
"Shell burst," Quorn said, getting up again. "They're ranging us down
the canyon." He reached for his helmet. The skiff shuddered a second
time, harder. Trehearne scrambled painfully to his feet. He tried to
jam Edri's helmet down over his head, but Edri fought him, clinging
to the transmitter. Quorn laid hold of him and yelled, "You're not
getting through any more! Come on!" He closed the master switch.
Between them they got Edri's hands loose and the helmet on him. The
skiff was racked again, and something broke with a crackle of exploding
glass. Trehearne locked his own helmet. Through the audio he could hear
Quorn shouting something about the airlock and getting clear before the
skiff was blasted flat with them inside it. Half dragging Edri between
them, they began to run. Some of the deck plates were already buckled,
and there was an ominous shrill whistle of escaping air. They reached
the lock and got it open.
Out on the canyon floor a great light blossomed and died. Chunks of
rock struck silently against the skiff. The deck leaped under their
feet, and the airlock spewed them out as the hull rocked over. They hit
the ground hard, too hard. For the space of several seconds they lay
where they were, and there were no more shell bursts. Trehearne groaned
and sat up. "I guess that was the last one. Quorn? Edri? Somebody
answer me."
Edri was silent, but Quorn said thickly, "They know we quit sending.
Damn it, I've cut my mouth on the helmet rim and it's bleeding all over
me." Trehearne could hear him spitting. He crawled over and shook Edri.
Presently Edri said, "Where's the notebook?"
"Still in the skiff."
"We've got to get it...."
"What for?"
"I guess you're right. Did we do it, Quorn? Did we put it through?"
"I don't know, I don't know! They came in on us so fast...."
He got up off the ground, looking at something, and then he pointed, up
into the black sky. "Are we going to run," he asked, "or wait?"
Trehearne looked up and down the river bed that was clogged with air,
frozen, and then along the cruel, cold line of the cliffs above. "We
could breathe for a few hours, all right, till our oxygen gave out. But
it hardly seems worth it."