Chapter VIII

Deanne was never certain whether her decision had been wholly a product of her own mind, seething as it had been with the awful conflict between her life's learning and what she knew to be right, or if it had been made for her by the clanging of the ship's alarm intercom unit in her quarters.

She had been lucky. She had succeeded in getting back undetected from her breach of arrest; return from her vantage point atop the conference chamber had been as uneventful as her stealthy escape through the catwalk maze to it, and once safely back in her quarters she had tried to rest, to get her mind in order and to think.

Her uncle, the Director Gentech himself, had been beaten by B-Haaq, and B-Haaq was not a man to let an advantage be wasted. It would be only a matter of time, now. A matter of time, and the Majtech would be giving the orders, and her own fate would be in his hands. She had to decide. To stay and try to help a faltering old man or to make an outright attempt to escape even as Kane had done, and then somehow to find him! For Kane had been right! Oh, yes, Kane had been right. For power was not an end in itself, and in the last analysis, the end did not justify the means! The ITA, right or wrong ... no! The ITA was wrong!

The alarm clanged, and then the speaker squawked raucously.

"Attention all officers and techpersonnel! Man your combat stations! An unidentified spacecraft lies nine point three points starboard ecliptic minus twelve oh three at three hundred thousand and we are overhauling. Presence of the fugitive Kane aboard is strong probability, therefore orders are to fire to destroy. Repeating, all officers and techpersonnel, man your combat stations! An--"

Deanne snapped the communicator into silence with a force that nearly tore the toggle from its socket. The stupid fools! Enemies had always been destroyed in the past, and so now this enemy was to be destroyed! Regardless of the fact that they would never find Kane, alive or otherwise, if every ship aboard which he might be were blasted to bits!

In moments, the corridors and catwalks would be alive with scurrying Cadtechs, officers and labortechs, rushing pell-mell to half forgotten battle stations, trying desperately as they did to remember precisely how the Flagship's long silent cannon were operated. There would be no eyes for a shapeless, space-suited figure.

She waited tensely until the clamor outside her cubicle was at its height, then swiftly opened the narrow bulkhead hatch, stepped through it and into the milling chaos of men and women, and let herself be swept toward the suit lockers, and the bank or lock ports near them.

The corridor lights were blazing, now, and the white faces that bobbed beneath them were strained. Deanne found a suit and donned it even as the first of the craft's spacecannon was fired. The deck shuddered beneath her feet, and she was nearly knocked off balance by a trio of guntechs who had not yet found their posts. But there was more order now, and she would have to hurry. The other ship must be close, for the guns had already begun firing barrages, and that was only done when the target was in naked-eye view.

Swiftly, she slipped into an air lock, flattened herself against a narrow bulkhead as its inner port slid shut, and remained immobile as its automatic pumps cycled down to zero pressure. Now she would wait, watch and pray that no one looked into the lock in passing. It was a crazy gamble, and if Jon were not aboard....

She watched the star strewn blackness, narrowed her eyelids against the awful glare in it each time a battery fired, and there was a sudden little catch in her throat as the limn of mighty Jupiter swung majestically into her field of vision. Somewhere, out there, in that awful infinity--there!

Ice seemed to form in a lump inside her. The alien ship was a perfect target, silhouetted against the huge shining disc of Jove! _And it was breaking up!_

Great gouts of fire were bursting from its engine housings, molten fragments of jagged metal glowed as they gyrated crazily from it in great showers of white-hot flame, and she could feel the awful vibration of the Flagship's guns as they continued firing mercilessly on target.

A tiny pinpoint of fire.

She saw it, and in the eye searing holocaust it did not at once register on her reeling brain.

A tiny pinpoint of blue-white fire that had not emanated from the stricken alien, but had suddenly appeared for a mere fraction of a second at a considerable distance from it! A suit pack!

With the silent prayer at her lips that it had escaped the eyes of the others, Deanne triggered open the outer lock port and launched herself into Space.

* * * * *

Somehow she knew the man was Jon Kane, even as she knew she had found him too late. She stood, rooted to the spot in the deep shadow of the ragged crag beneath which she had landed, unable even to warn him of the man who had suddenly appeared behind him. A man with a weapon in one hand, aimed straight at the Cadtech's back! To use her radio at such a distance would mean a power output that would bring a spacetender down upon her within minutes.

Helplessly, she watched. Watched as the other touched Jon with his weapon, forced him over the lip of a wide crater--

"No--!"

Her choked scream all but deafened her inside her helmet.

Then she saw that the other followed over the lip, and realized that their destination was somewhere inside the depression itself.

For long, silent moments she stood in maddening frustration, watching the two men disappear into the crater, as powerless to act as she had been to warn. She could not go back, now, nor could she go further.