The sound was familiar now, the sharp _thunggg_ of Red’s needle-gun. The plopping sound as it pierced the anthropomorphic. He felt the creature stiffen and its arms flew away from Ward, flailing in terrible anguish. An inhuman cry rang in his ears. He saw Red crouched there in that tigerish, fiendish manner he had displayed in the Federal Building.
Again he was watching the incredible, reeling metamorphosis--the rapid disintegration of that towering organism into--
Nothing remained but some buttons and a large zipper talon.
As they ran up the corridor, now growing noticeably warmer from the terrific friction on the hull, Ward’s strength seeped slowly back into his veins, and his eyes accustomed themselves to the light. Soon he and Red were molecules in a surging agitated stream of a running, shouting, stamping and utterly frantic mob. No one noticed them in the bedlam.
Suddenly Red grabbed Ward’s hand. “Trust me, Doc. I’ll take the cage. They will recognize you, and I think I can make it all right. We’ll both take different air-sleds. See you.”
Ward yelled--but Red was gone in the bedlam. But what could he have said? How could he have objected? It was logically the best way. He trusted Red because he had to. Ward fought his way through the yammering crowds, got his pressure suit, entered an air-lock and climbed into the spherical cramped interior of a jam-packed air-sled.
The Ensign at the controls was visibly trembling. Two ancient dowagers were hysterically screaming like frightened parrots. A chubby, bejeweled Martian Monel Metals representative was taking para-pills to quiet his nerves, enough to kill a horse. He passed out. The daughter of Vasco Von Belscon, who practically owned the Space Lines, was clinging to a young man who was, in turn, clinging to someone else and mumbling fearfully about the obviously untrue axiom that everything would be all right.
“This--this sled is overcrowded,” quavered the Ensign. “Be calm and don’t try to cause trouble. We’ll be lucky if we don’t smash up. I don’t think our levitation plates are sufficiently heterodyned for this great a load. And there’s no adjustment can be made at this short notice.”
“See here,” yelled Ward, “why commit suicide then?”