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Updated: May 7, 2025
"Well?" I said. "You are sparing of words, Haljan. By the devils of the airways, I could make you talk! But I want to be friendly." I handed him back the scrolls. I stood up. I was almost within reach of his weapon, but with a sweep of his great arm he knocked me back to my bunk. "You dare?" Then he smiled. "Let us not come to blows!" In truth, physical violence could get me nothing.
I gripped her arm with all the power of my fingers. It must have hurt her but she gave no sign; her gaze clung to me steadily. "I don't know what to think, Gregg Haljan...." I held my grip. "Think what you like. Men of Earth have been known to kill the thing they love." "You want me to fear you?" "Perhaps." She smiled scornfully. "That is absurd." I released her.
Never fear, little Anita." "With you to lead us, I'm sure we will." A man entered the cubby. Potan looked frowningly around. "What is it, Argle?" The fellow answered in Martian, leered at Anita and withdrew. Potan stood up. I noticed that he was unsteady with the drink. "They want me with the work at the projectors." "Go ahead," I said. He nodded. We were comrades now. "Amuse yourself, Haljan.
We will be rich, you and I. All the luxuries these worlds can offer all for us when this is over. Careful, Moa! This Haljan has no wit." Well could he say it. I, who had been so witless as to let this come upon us! Moa's weapon prodded me. Her voice hissed at me with all the venom of a reptile enraged. "So that was your game, Gregg Haljan! And I was so graceless as to admit love for you!"
I would have to try guile. And I saw now that his face was flushed and his eyes unnaturally bright. He had been drinking alcolite; not enough to befuddle him, but enough to make him triumphantly talkative. "Hahn may not be much of a mathematician," I suggested. "But there is your Sir Arthur Coniston." I managed a sarcastic grin. "Is that his name?" "Almost. Haljan, will you verify these figures?"
Anita said aloud into my empty cubby: "Miko will come for you presently, Haljan. He told me that he wants you at the turret controls to land us on the asteroid." She finished sealing my door and turned away; started forward along the deck. I followed. My steps were soundless in my elastic-bottomed shoes. Anita swaggered with a noisy tread.
He shouted down: "We have orders to spare you, Gregg Haljan or you would have been killed long ago!" My answering shot hit his barrage with a shower of sparks, behind which he stood unmoved. Carter handed me another weapon. "Gregg, try this." I leveled the old explosive projector; Carter crouched beside me.
He needed what little repose he could get. I dressed, left our cubby and wandered out into the corridor of the main building. It was cold in the corridor, and gloomy with the weak blue light. An interior watchman passed me. "All as usual, Haljan." "Nothing in sight?" "No. They're watching." I went through the connecting corridor to the adjacent building.
"This is Sir Arthur Coniston, an English gentleman, lecturer and sky-trotter that is, he will be a sky-trotter; he tells us he plans a number of voyages." The tall Englishman, in his white linen suit, bowed acknowledgement. "My compliments, Mr. Haljan. I hope you have no strong religious convictions, else we will make your table here very miserable!"
The hiss of death so close! "Snap " I murmured. "Oh, Gregg, I pray we may find him alive!" With a fifteen foot leap we cleared a pile of broken deck chairs. A man lay groaning near them. I went back with a rush. Not Snap! A steward. He had been a brigand, but he was a steward to me now. "Get up! This is Haljan. Hurry, we must get out of here The air is escaping!" But he sank back and lay still.
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