"If you'd seen them gunning those poor workers, you wouldn't talk about sitting ducks. They're merciless. And by the way," I said, "why didn't you see that? Why didn't you cut loose with your wonder weapons during the fight?" "Ray, this wheel is soundproof. It was only by chance that I happened to glance out, by way of a viewer, as you came up the ramp. And of course then I wasn't fully aware of the extent of the killing, or I might have used the guns instead of trying to talk to them." Howard sighed again. "I'm not the violent sort. I guess I wouldn't have thought of the guns anyhow." He looked thoughtfully at me. "I wonder why the Marines didn't radio to us when it began?" "The Old Companions are hand-jamming the island." "Oh." He glanced at the corner, where Trutch lay, bound hand and foot and grimacing at us. He was our only prisoner. "It's a fairy tale," he said. "It's _unreal_!" "It won't be so unreal if the other Neanderthal musters succeed in blasting us out into an orbit, Howard." Nessa began to cry. I wouldn't have known it, she did it so silently, but I happened to see a tear glisten on her cheek. "What is it, honey?" I asked, going to her. "The baby," she whispered, and then she was choked and couldn't speak. But it hit me at once: acceleration would at the least lose us our child, and probably also kill my wife. I jumped up. "Come on, all of you," I snapped. "Stick together and follow me quick. We've got to lay that field waste, before we're catapulted into the void. And don't lag, because Cuff could take any one of us between two fingers and snap us in half." Howard led us to the control room of the armory. Here the viewers hadn't been affected by my sabotage. We saw the field again, and the three-stage rockets--they had all been brought to Odo by this time--in the last moments of their attaching. The solar mirrors had slowly collapsed, letting the great wheel down to earth again. It didn't look as if we had more than a couple of minutes to go. Howard sat down, his movements irritatingly deliberate, and began to point out the trigger assemblies, the sighters, and the ammo reserve levers. I waited till I got the set-up, then shoved him aside and sat down in his place. "This is my job, son," I said. "Allow me the dirty work. I feel just savage enough to enjoy it." * * * * *