Part 7 (2/2)

_Seven down. Fifty-two to go._

He kept an eye on the airlock door and a finger on his firing stud, waiting to see if anyone else would come out. No one else did.

As soon as Sherri was safely up to the top of the precipice, Wayne ran to meet her.

”Sherri! What the devil did you come out here for?”

”I had to see you,” she said, panting for breath. ”If you'll come back to the s.h.i.+p before they beam you down, we can prove to Colonel Petersen that you're all right. We can show them that the Masters--”

She realized suddenly what she said and uttered a little gasp. She had her pistol out before the surprised Wayne could move.

He stared coldly at the pistol, thinking bitterly that this was a h.e.l.l of a way for it all to finish. ”So they got you too,” he said. ”That little display at the airlock was a phony. You were sent out here to lure me back into the s.h.i.+p. Just another Judas.”

She nodded slowly. ”That's right,” she said. ”We all have to go to the Masters. It is--it--is--is--”

Her eyes glazed, and she swayed on her feet. The pistol wavered and swung in a feeble spiral, no longer pointed at Wayne. Gently, he took it from her nerveless fingers and caught her supple body as she fell.

He wiped his forehead dry. Up above, the sun was climbing toward the top of the sky, and its beams raked the planet below, pouring down heat.

He glanced at his wrist.w.a.tch while waiting for his nerves to stop tingling. Sherri must have been the last one--the drug must have taken effect at last, and not a moment too soon. He decided to wait another half hour before he tried to get into the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p, just the same.

The huge globe of the _Lord Nelson_ stood forlornly in the center of the valley. The airlock door stayed open; no one tried to close it.

Wayne's mouth was growing dry; his tongue felt like sandpaper.

Nevertheless, he forced himself to sit quietly, watching the s.h.i.+p closely for the full half hour, before he picked up Sherri, tied his rope around her waist, and lowered her to the valley floor. Then he wandered around the rocks, collecting the six unconscious men, and did the same for them.

He carried them all, one by one, across the sand, burning a path before him with the needle beam.

Long before he had finished his task, the sand was churning loathsomely with the needles of hundreds and thousands of the monstrous little beasts. They were trying frantically to bring down the being that was so effectively thwarting their plans, jabbing viciously with their upthrust beaks. The expanse of sand that was the valley looked like a pincus.h.i.+on, with the writhing needles ploughing through the ground one after another. Wayne kept the orifice of his beam pistol hot as he cut his way back and forth from the base of the cliff to the s.h.i.+p.

When he had dumped the seven unconscious ones all inside the airlock, he closed the outer door and opened the inner one. There was not a sound from within.

_Fifty-nine down_, he thought, _and none to go_.

He entered the s.h.i.+p and dashed down the winding staircase to the water purifiers to change the water in the reservoir tanks. Thirsty as he was, he was not going to take a drink until the water had been cleared of the knockout drug he had dropped into the tanks.

After that came the laborious job of getting everyone in the s.h.i.+p strapped into their bunks for the takeoff. It took the better part of an hour to get all sixty of them up--they had fallen all over the s.h.i.+p--and nestled in the acceleration cradles. When the job was done, he went to the main control room and set the autopilot to lift the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p high into the ionosphere.

Then, sighting carefully on the valley far below, he dropped a flare bomb.

”Goodbye, little monsters,” he said exultantly.

For a short s.p.a.ce of time, nothing happened. Then the viewplate was filled with a deadly blue-white glare. Unlike an ordinary atomic bomb, the flare bomb would not explode violently; it simply burned, sending out a brilliant flare of deadly radiation that would crisp all life dozens of feet below the ground.

He watched the radiation blazing below. Then it began to die down, and when the glare cleared away, all was quiet below.

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