It was very necessary to board the ship-Elder Zaccur Barstow had told them with deep solemnness what lay in store for them if they failed to board. She had believed earnestness; nevertheless she wondered how it could possibly be true-could anyone be so wicked, so deeply and terribly wicked as to want to kill anyone as harmless and helpless as herself and her baby?
She was struck by panic terror-suppose there was no room left by the time she got up to the ship? She clutched her baby more tightly; the child cried again at the pressure.
A woman in the crowd moved closer and spoke to her “You must be tired. May I carry the baby for a while?”
“No. No, thank you. I’m all right.” A flash of lightning showed the woman’s face; Eleanor Johnson recognized her Elder Mary Sperling.
But the kindness of the offer steadied her. She knew now what she must do. If they were filled up and could take no more, she must pass her baby forward, hand to hand over the heads of the crowd. They could not refuse space to anything as little as her baby.
Something brushed her in the dark. The crowd was moving forward again.
When Barstow could see that loading would be finished in a few more minutes he left his post at one of the cargo doors and ran as fast as he could through the splashing sticky mud to the communications shack. Ford had warned him to give notice just before they raised ship; it was necessary to Ford’s plan for diversion. Barstow fumbled with an awkward un-powered door, swung it open and rushed up. He set the private combination which should connect him directly to Ford’s control desk and pushed the key.
He was answered at once but it was not Ford’s face on the screen. Barstow burst out with, “Where is the Administrator? I want to talk with him,” before he recognized the face in front of him.
It was a face well known to all the public-Bork Vanning, Leader of the Minority in the Council. “You’re talking to the Administrator,” Vanning said and grinned coldly. “The new Administrator. Now who the devil are you and why are you calling?”
Barstow thanked all gods, past and present, that recognition was onesided. He cut the connection with one unaimed blow and plunged out of the building.
Two cargo ports were already closed; stragglers were moving through the other two. Barstow hurried the last of them inside with curses and followed them, slammed pell-mell to the control room. “Raise ship!” he shouted to Lazarus. “Fast!”
“What’s all the shoutin’ fer?” asked Lazarus, but he was already closing and sealing the ports. He tripped the acceleration screamer, waited a scant ten seconds . . . and gave her power.
“Well,” he said conversationally six minutes later, “I hope everybody was lying down. If not, we’ve got some broken bones on our hands. What’s that you were saying?”
Barstow told him about his attempt to report to Ford.
Lazarus blinked and whistled a few bars of Turkey in the Straw. “It looks like we’ve run out of minutes. It does look like it.” He shut up and gave his attention to his instruments, one eye on his ballistic track, one on radar-aft.
Chapter 7
LAZARUS HAD his hands full to jockey the Chili into just the right position against the side of the New Frontiers; the overstrained meters made the smaller craft skittish as a young horse. But he did it. The magnetic anchors clanged home; the gas-tight seals slapped into place; and their ears popped as the pressure in the Chili adjusted to that in the giant ship. Lazarus dived for the drop hole in the deck of the control room, pulled himself rapidly hand over hand to the port of contact, and reached the passenger lock of the New Frontiers to find himself facing the skipper-engineer.
The man looked at him and snorted. “You again, eh? Why the deuce didn’t you answer our challenge? You can’t lock onto us without permission; this is private property. What do you mean by it?”
“It means,” said Lazarus, “that you and your boys are going back to Earth a few days early-in this ship.”