The ship’s canted attitude let us see that the upper surface and what was surely its airlock—a metal hemisphere, a dozen feet across, at the main axis of the ship, where the hub would have been had it been a wheel. This hemisphere was lifted straight out or up from the body of the ship some six or eight feet. I could not see what held it out from the hull but I assumed that there must be a central shaft or piston; it came out like a poppet valve.
It was easy to see why the masters of the saucer had not closed up again and taken off from there; the airlock was fouled, held open by a “mud turtle”, one of those little amphibious tanks which are at home on the bottom of a harbor or crawling up onto a beach—part of the landing force of the Fulton.
Let me set down now what I learned later; the tank was commanded by Ensign Gilbert Calhoun of Knoxville; with him was Powerman 2/c Florence Berzowski and a gunner named Booker T. W. Johnson. They were all dead, of course, before we got there.
The car, as soon as I roaded it, was surrounded by a landing force squad commanded by a pink-cheeked lad who seemed anxious to shoot somebody or anybody. He was less anxious when he got a look at Mary but he still refused to let us approach the saucer until he had checked with his tactical commander—who in turn consulted the skipper of the Fulton. We got an answer back in a short time, considering that the demand must have been referred to Rexton and probably clear back to Washington.
While waiting I watched the battle and, from what I saw, was well pleased to have no part of it. Somebody was going to get hurt—a good many had already. There was a male body, stark naked, just behind the car—a boy not more than fourteen. He was still clutching a rocket launcher and across his shoulders was the mark of the beast, though the slug was nowhere around. I wondered whether the slug had crawled away and was dying, or whether, perhaps, it had managed to transfer to the person who had bayoneted the boy.
Mary had walked west on the highway with the downy young naval officer while I was examining the corpse. The notion of a slug, possibly still alive, being around caused me to hurry to her. “Get back into the car,” I said.
She continued to look west along the road. “I thought I might get in a shot or two,” she answered, her eyes bright.
“She’s safe here,” the youngster assured me. “We’re holding them, well down the road.”
I ignored him. “Listen, you bloodthirsty little hellion,” I snapped, “get back in that car before I break every bone in your body!”
“Yes, Sam.” She turned and did so.
I looked back at the young salt. “What are you staring at?” I demanded, feeling edgy and needing someone to take it out on. The place smelled of slugs and the wait was making me nervous.
“Nothing much,” he said, looking me over. “In my part of the country we don’t speak to ladies that way.”
“Then why in the hell don’t you go back where you come from?” I answered and stalked away. The Old Man was missing, too; I did not like it.
An ambulance, coming back from the west, ground to a halt beside me. “Has the road to Pascagoula been opened?” the driver called out.
The Pascagoula River, thirty miles or so east of where the saucer had landed, was roughly “Zone Amber” for that area; the town of that name was east of the river’s mouth and, nominally at least, in Zone Green—while sixty or seventy miles west of us on the same road was New Orleans, the heaviest concentration of titans south of St. Louis. Our opposition came from New Orleans while our nearest base was in Mobile.
“I haven’t heard,” I told the driver.
He chewed a knuckle. “Well . . . I made it through once; maybe I’ll make it back all right.” His turbines whined and he was away. I continued to look for the Old Man.