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He pushed the three cadets out of the air lock and slammed the pluglike door closed. From two feet away it was impossible to spot the seams in the metal covering on the port and the hull. "Clear ramp! Clear ramp!" Strong's voice echoed over the spaceport. Tom, Roger, and Astro scurried down the ladder and broke away from the ramp in a run.
He slammed the bolts home. He was up the ramp in a moment, and had banged the trap-door behind him. Old Piper turned from the loop-hole. "Seems there's summat up yonder behind the trees, sir. I yeard Ah! what'll that be?" From behind the knoll came a sudden holloa, then an uproarious burst of laughter. "They've got em, by God!" The old man swung his chair about with lion- like eyes.
In the first place, as soon as Monty's command had penetrated downward through the trees parallel with the side of the ramp, he had the entrenched company in flank. It did not seem to me that he left more than ten or fifteen men to make that trench untenable, but the Turks were out of it within five minutes and in full retreat under a hot fire from Fred's men.
The ramp leading down to what he hoped was street level was terribly steep and there were no steps. Bart eased himself over the top of the ramp and let go. He whooshed down the slick surface on the flat of his back, feeling the metal of the cloak heat with the friction, and came to a breathless jarring stop at the bottom. Whew, what a slide! Three stories, at least!
At a little after eight o'clock Mahmoud resumed the offensive with his artillery, and a messenger that Monty sent down to watch returned and reported the shells all bursting wild, with Rustum Khan's men taking careful cover in the ditches they had zigzagged down the whole face of the ramp.
But he forgot to replace it, and he went away with the cap in his hand. She heard the clink of a chain as he loosed his boat. The Abbe Touvent was not a courageous man, and the perspiration, induced by the climb from the high-road up that which had once been the ramp to the Chateau of Gemosac, ran cold when he had turned the key in the rusty lock of the great gate.
Somebody made other things fast and the purple-cloaked man triumphantly entered the ship. There was a pause. Men loaded carts with cargo to be sent to remote and unimagined planets. In the air lock, Bron Hoddan stepped to the unloading ramp and descended to the ground. He was the only passenger. He had barely reached a firm footing when objects followed him.
"They're none too sure, themselves. Look as if they are closing up for the night." Indeed it did. The painted men had hauled up their ramp, the hatch in the globe closed with a definite snap. Seeing that, the com-tech laughed. "We have a double reason for a strict watch. Suppose whatever they've been looking for jumps us? They're not worrying over that it now appears."
Entering Earth's atmosphere, Tom gave a series of rapid orders for course changes and power adjustments, and then, depressing the master turn control, spun the ship around so that she would settle stern first toward her ramp at the Academy spaceport. "Radar deck to control deck," called Roger over the intercom. "One thousand feet to touchdown!" "Control deck, aye," answered Tom.
"Mahmoud knows by now that the trees are down," said I. "His watchers must have seen them fall. Some of the trees are lying outward toward the ramp." "Exactly," said Monty. "His own inclination will lead him to use our new road, and we must see that he does exactly that.
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