“What about your passenger?” Amalfi said with studied nonchalance.
“Dr. Beetle? Not that that was his name, I couldn’t pronounce that even when I had my tongue. I don’t imagine he survived; we had to keep him in a tank even in the city, and I can’t quite see him living through a life-ship journey. He was a Myrdian, smart cookies all of them, too. That no-fuel drive of his—”
Outside, a shot cracked, and Amalfi winced. “We’d best get off—they’re getting their eyesight back~ Talk to you later. Hazleton, any incidents?”
“Nothing to speak of, boss. Everybody stowed?”
“Yep. Kick off.”
There was a volley of shots, and then the rocket coughed, roared, and stood on its tail. Amalfi pulled a deep sigh loose from the acceleration and turned his head toward the rational man.
He was still securely strapped in, and looked quite relaxed. A brassnosed slug had come through the side of the ship next to him and had neatly removed the top of his skull.
IV.
WORKING information out of the madmen was a painfully long, anxious process. The manic was a threehundred-fifty-hour case, and even after he had been returned to a semblance of rationality he could contribute very little.
The life ship had not come to He because of the city’s Dirac warning, he said. The life ship and the burned Okie had not had any Dirac equipment. The life ship had come to He, as Amalfi had predicted, because it was the only possible planetfall in the desert of the Rift. Even so, the refugees had had to use deep-sleep and strict starvation rationing to make it.