What he wanted to do was to get back to Joe. The two of them would round up or join a large body of men. And he would be secure again, or as secure as it was possible to be under the circumstances.
For a moment he thought about taking refuge inside a cabin. He could hole up and then come out when the people from the Rex had been cleared out.
It was a nice thought, one which anyone with a logical mind and common sense would have.
Down along the deck, something struck with a metallic clang. A man cursed softly; somebody else spoke just as quietly but harshly, a reprimand. Sam stopped, his shoulder pressed against the cold bulkhead. Near the prow, the shadowy figures of men were coming down the steps from the hurricane deck. There seemed to be about twenty.
He slid backward, his shoulder against the metal. His left hand felt behind him. When he touched the edge of the open hatch, he turned swiftly and went into it. He was in another unlit passageway which went straight to the hatch on the other side. This was open, showing a pale oblong lit only by starlight and a flickering from the burning flight deck. Sam decided to get to that side, and he started trotting. Then he stopped.
It was his duty to ascertain who the men were and what they were doing. He’d feel like a fool if they were his people. And if they weren’t, he should determine what they were up to.
Of course, they would be looking into every open entrance before they went past it. He opened the door to a cabin and stepped inside, leaving the door partly open. From this angle, he could see them but they couldn’t see him in the darkness.
He had opened another cabin door across the corridor so he could take refuge in that if he had to. He did not want to be trapped.
There was, however, nothing he could do about his situation now. The first of the party had bounded through the opening, stopped against the side of the hatchway, where he was barely visible, and pointed a pistol. A second man also leaped in and hurled himself toward the other side of the hatchway, his pistol ready.
Sam did not fire. If they would only be content to look along the passageway. They were. After several seconds, one said, “All clear!”
Both left for the walkway, and figures began filing past the oblong. The fourth one went by, and Sam gasped. The profile against the indirect light of the stairs was that of a short broad-shouldered man. The figure walked with John’s gait. It had been thirty-three years since he had seen the ex-monarch, but he had forgotten little about him.
36
RAGE OVERCAME FEAR, A RAGE THAT WAS A COMPRESSION OF all the rages he’d felt on Earth and here. He did not even think about the consequences. At last! Here it was! Vengeance!
He stepped outside the cabin and went softly across the deck. Though he was so exuberant that he was almost dizzy, he still had not lost all discretion. He wasn’t going to warn them so they could shoot him before he got to John.
The only bad part about this was that he’d have to shoot John in the back. The bastard would never know who had killed him. But you couldn’t have everything. He desired passionately to call out John’s name, identify himself, and then squeeze the trigger. But John’s men would shoot him down the second they were aware of his presence.
Just as he reached the hatchway, hell exploded outside. There was a crash of gunfire that deafened him and made him pin himself against the bulkhead as if he were a two-legged butterfly. His fluttering heart was the wings.
More shooting. Cries and screams. A man reeled backward into the passageway. Sam leaped for the open door of the cabin, spun, shut it, then opened it again. He looked through the narrow opening in time to see others come into the passageway. One was the bulky form of John, no mistake about that, outlined briefly against the light.
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