The guard shook his head sourly. “No one is allowed near the ship. The order was just issued. It is thought there is danger.”
Svan stepped closer, his teeth bared in what passed for a smile. “It is urgent,” he purred. His right hand flashed across his chest in a complicated gesture. “Do you understand?”
Confusion furrowed the guard’s hairless brows, then was replaced by a sudden flare of understanding—and fear. “The Council!” he roared. “By heaven, yes, I understand! You are the swine that caused this—” He strove instinctively to bring the clumsy rifle up, but Svan was faster. His gamble had failed; there was only one course remaining. He hurled his gross white bulk at the guard, bowled him over against the splintery logs of the road. The proton-rifle went flying, and Svan savagely tore at the throat of the guard. Knees, elbows and claw-like nails—Svan battered at the astonished man with every ounce of strength in his body. The guard was as big as Svan, but Svan had the initial advantage … and it was only a matter of seconds before the guard lay unconscious, his skull a mass of gore at the back where Svan had ruthlessly pounded it against the road.
Svan rose, panting, stared around. No one else was in sight, save the petrified five and the ground car. Svan glared at them contemptuously, then reached down and heaved on the senseless body of the guard. Over the shoulder of the road the body went, onto the damp swampland of the jungle. Even while Svan watched the body began to sink. There would be no trace.
Svan strode back to the car. “Hurry up,” he gasped to the girl. “Now there is danger for all of us, if they discover he is missing. And keep a watch for other guards.”
Venus has no moon, and no star can shine through its vast cloud layer. Ensign Lowry, staring anxiously out through the astrodome in the bow of the Earth-ship, cursed the blackness.
“Can’t see a thing,” he complained to the Exec, steadily writing away at the computer’s table. “Look—are those lights over there?”
The Exec looked up wearily. He shrugged. “Probably the guards. Of course, you can’t tell. Might be a raiding party.”
Lowry, stung, looked to see if the Exec was smiling, but found no answer in his stolid face. “Don’t joke about it,” he said. “Suppose something happens to the delegation?”
“Then we’re in the soup,” the Exec said philosophically. “I told you the natives were dangerous. Spy-rays! They’ve been prohibited for the last three hundred years.”
“It isn’t all the natives,” Lowry said. “Look how they’ve doubled the guard around us. The administration is cooperating every way they know how. You heard the delegation’s report on the intercom. It’s this secret group they call the Council.”
“And how do you know the guards themselves don’t belong to it?” the Exec retorted. “They’re all the same to me. … Look, your light’s gone out now. Must have been the guard. They’re on the wrong side to be coming from the town, anyhow. …”
Svan hesitated only a fraction of a second after the girl turned the lights out and stopped the car. Then he reached in the compartment under the seat. If he took a little longer than seemed necessary to get the atomite bomb out of the compartment, none of the others noticed. Certainly it did not occur to them that there had been two bombs in the compartment, though Svan’s hand emerged with only one.
He got out of the car, holding the sphere. “This will do for me,” he said. “They won’t be expecting anyone to come from behind the ship—we were wise to circle around. Now, you know what you must do?”
Ingra nodded, while the others remained mute. “We must circle back again,” she parroted. “We are to wait five minutes, then drive the car into the swamp. We will create a commotion, attract the guards.”
Svan, listening, thought: It’s not much of a plan. The guards would not be drawn away. I am glad I can’t trust these five anymore. If they must be destroyed, it is good that their destruction will serve a purpose.
Aloud, he said, “You understand. If I get through, I will return to the city on foot. No one will suspect anything if I am not caught, because the bomb will not explode until the ship is far out in space. Remember, you are in no danger from the guards.”
From the guards
, his mind echoed. He smiled. At least, they would feel no pain, never know what happened. With the amount of atomite in that bomb in the compartment, they would merely be obliterated in a ground-shaking crash.
Abruptly he swallowed, reminded of the bomb that was silently counting off the seconds. “Go ahead,” he ordered. “I will wait here.”
“Svan.” The girl, Ingra, leaned over to him. Impulsively she reached for him, kissed him. “Good luck to you, Svan,” she said.
“Good luck,” repeated the others. Then silently the electric motor of the car took hold. Skilfully the girl backed it up, turned it around, sent it lumbering back down the road. Only after she had traveled a few hundred feet by the feel of the road did she turn the lights on again.
Svan looked after them. The kiss had surprised him. What did it mean? Was it an error that the girl should die with the others?
There was an instant of doubt in his steel-shackled mind, then it was driven away. Perhaps she was loyal, yet certainly she was weak. And since he could not know which was the one who had received the marked slip, and feared to admit it, it was better they all should die.
He advanced along the midnight road to where the ground rose and the jungle plants thinned out. Ahead, on an elevation, were the rain-dimmed lights of the Earth-ship, set down in the center of a clearing made by
