Part 14 (1/2)
”Let me pick one man, Colonel,” Anse Dawes said ”I'll pick me”
X
They sent a snooper in first; it picked up faint radiation leakage fro else The tunnel stretched ahead of it, eone a , the jeep followed, Anse Dawes piloting and Conn at the snooper controls watching what it transmitted back The two lorries followed, loaded with ht up the rear They had cut screen-and-radio co inter-vehicle co cavern, swinging slowly to scan it The walls and ceiling were rough and irregular; it was natural instead of excavated Only the floor had been leveled ss in it, machinery and vehicles, all battered and in poor condition, dusty and cobwebbed: the spaceport junkheap A passage, still large enough for one of the gunboats, led deeper into the mountain toward the crater They sent the snooper in and, after a while, followed
They caular, excavated caverns On the plans, they were marked as storerooms Cases and crates, indeterminate shrouded objects; some had never been disturbed, but here and there they found evidence of recent investigation
Beyond was another passage, almost as wide as the Mall in Litchfield; even the _Lester Dawes_ could have negotiated it According to the plans, it ran straight out to the shi+p docks and the open crater beyond Anse turned the jeep into a side passage, and Conn recalled the snooper and sent it ahead On the plan, it led to another natural cavern, half its width shown as level with the entrance The other half was a pit, marked as sixty feet deep; above this and just under the ceiling, several passages branched out in different directions
The snooper reported visible light ahead; fluoroelectric light froht from the pit The air-analyzer reported woods oil He sent the snooper ahead, tilting it to look down into the pit
A s in the center; around it, in a circle, so a feomen and children, sat, squatted or reclined A low hum of voices came out of the soundbox
”Who the blazes are they?” Anse whispered ”I can't see any way they could have gotten down there”
They were in rags, and they weren't ar them Conn motioned the lorries and the other jeep forward
”Prisoners,” he said ”I think they were hauled down here on a scow, shoved off, and left when the fighting started Coverdown and talk to the As Anse took the jeep over and started floating it down, the circle around the fire beganpushed to the rear and theup clubs and other chance weapons By the ti defensively in front of the woed; the rizzled beard, in greasy coveralls; another man with a black beard and an old space Navy unifor; another in the sania had been replaced by the emblem of Transcontinent & Overseas shi+plines and the words CHIEF
And beside the tall y trousers and a torn ss and filth, Conn saw that she was beautiful
Black hair, dark eyes, an impudently tilted nose
They all looked at hied to perplexity and then hope
”Who are you?” the tallhere”
”Litchfield Exploration & Salvage; I'; none of the on topside?” the ed head and the four stripes on his sleeve asked ”There was firing, artillery and nuclears, and they herded us down here Have you cleaned the bloodyon it,” Conn said ”I take it they aren't friends of yours?”
Foolish Question of the Year; they all made that evident
”They took my shi+p; they ers”
”They burned our hoirl said ”They kidnappedus here as slaves”
”It's the Blackie Perales gang,” the tallus work for theravity shi+p into a spacecraft I beg your pardon, Captain Nichols; she was a fine shi+p--for her intended purpose”
”You're Captain Nichols?” Anse Dawes exclaiht The _Harriet Barne's_ here; they've beenus work on her, to convert her to an interplanetary craft, of all idiotic things”