So there was an element of despair in Endlich's quick actions as he slammed Neely's face-window and his own shut, picked up his enemy, and used his jets to propel him in the long leap to the airlock of the dome. He had no real plan. He just had the ragged and all but hopeless thought of using Neely as a hostage--as a weapon in the bitter and desperate attempt to defend his wife and children from the mob that would be following close behind him.... Tumbling end over end with his light but bulky burden, he sprawled at the threshold of the airlock, where the guard, posted there, had stepped hastily out of his way. Again, capricious luck, surprise, and swift action were on his side. He pressed the control-button of the lock, and squirmed through its double valves before the startled guard could stop him. Then he slammed his jets wide, and aimed for the horizon. * * * * * It was a wild journey--for, to fly straight in a frictionless vacuum, any missile must be very well balanced; and the inertia and the slight but unwieldy weight of Neely's bulk disturbed such balance in his own jet-equipped space suit. The journey was made, then, not in a smooth arc, but in a series of erratic waverings. But what Endlich lacked in precise direction, he made up in sheer reckless, dread-driven speed. From the very start of that wild flight, he heard voices in his helmet phones: "Damn pun'kin-head greenhorn! Did you see how he hit Neely, Schmidt? Yeah--by surprise.... Yeah--Kuzak. I saw. He hit without warning.... Damn yella yokel.... Who's comin' along to get him?..." Sure--there was another side to it--other voices: "Shucks--Neely had it coming to him. I hope the farmer really murders that big lunkhead.... You ain't kiddin', Muir. I was glad to see his face splatter like a rotten tamata...." Okay--fine. It was good to know you had some sensible guys on your side. But what good was it, when the camp as a whole was boiling over from its internal troubles? There were more than enough roughnecks to do a mighty messy job--fast. Panting with tension, Endlich swooped down before his greenhouse, and dragged Neely inside through the airlock. For a fleeting instant the sights and sounds and smells that impinged on his senses, as he opened his face-window once more, brought him a regret. The rustle of corn, the odor of greenery, the chicken voices--there was home in all of this. Something pastoral and beautiful and orderly--gained with hard work. And something brought back--restored--from the remote past. The buzzing of the tay-tay bug was even a real echo from that smashed yet undoubtedly once beautiful world of antiquity. But these were fragile concerns, beside the desperate question of the immediate safety of Rose and the kids.... Already cries and shouts and comments were coming faintly through his helmet phones again: "Get the yokel! Get the bum!... We'll fix his wagon good...."