Part 26 (2/2)
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 ma.s.sive arms like gray pillars beneath it; and flung it. The box catapulted, dropped; and then pa.s.sing 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 t.i.tan, 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 pa.s.sengers 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 pa.s.sengers were gazing in horror at the bodies hurtling over them.
”Ready, Haljan?”
Moa prompted me. ”Tell him yes!”
I called, ”Yes!” Had Venza failed in her unknown purpose? It seemed so. On the radio room bridge Snap and his guard stood like silent statues in the blue lit gloom.
The disembarkation was over.
”Close the ports!” Miko commanded.
The incline came folding up with a clatter. The port and dome windows slid closed. Moa hissed against my ear:
”If you want life, Gregg Haljan, you will start your duties!”
Venza had failed. Whatever it was, it had come to nothing. Down in the purple forest, disconnected now from the s.h.i.+p, the last of our friends stood marooned. I could distinguish them through the blur of the closed dome--only a swaying, huddled group was visible. But my fancy pictured this last sight of them, Dr. Frank, Venza, Shac and Dud Ardley.
They were gone. There were left only Snap, Anita and myself.
I was mechanically ringing us away. I heard my sirens sounding down below, with the answering clangs here in the turret. The _Planetara's_ respiratory controls started; the pressure equalizers began operating; and the gravity plates began s.h.i.+fting into lifting combinations.
The s.h.i.+p was hissing and quivering with it, combined with the grating of the last of the dome ports. And Miko's command:
”Lift, Haljan!”
Hahn had been mingling with the confusion of the deck though I had hardly noticed him. Coniston had remained below with the crew answering my signals. Hahn stood now with Miko, gazing down through a deck window. Anita was alone at another.
”Lift, Haljan!”
I lifted up gently, bow first, with a repulsion of the bow plates. And started the central electronic engine. Its thrust from the stern moved us diagonally over the purple forest trees.
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