"Women and children first," he repeated, again and again. "Women and children first!"
They could hear from distant corridors an occasional shout and the clatter of running feet, but the first panic had subsided, and under the menace of the crew's guns the people had become subdued.
White-faced men stepped back and made themselves inconspicuous in the shadows, watching their wives and children file through the port, and looking after them hungrily. Once, a man screamed and tried to crash through the cordon. Thayer shot him, and he fell moaning to the floor. Dr. Willoughby moved through the crowd, soothing the hysterical, jollying the frightened, until he spied Alan Chase standing at the edge of the group.
He pushed through to Alan and threw his arm around the bony shoulder, encouragingly.
"I'm assigned to this first boat, Chase, and they'll want you in one of the others. We want at least one medical man in each boat. But I must warn you—" he look-ed around cautiously, but they might have been alone in a desert for all chance there was of anyone's listening to them, "be sure to get off in Boats B or D. Don't wait for Boat A."
"What difference does it make?"
"Boat A lies above two of the Piles that had to be dumped, and the radioactivity index is sure to be high. Normal people won't be harmed in the brief time they'll be on board if they're rescued, and if they're not rescued, of course, it won't matter anyway. Even you might not be harmed, but with your condition you shouldn't take the risk."
"But does it really matter?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that we'd counted on my reaching Almazin III quickly and living in an inert atmosphere in order to cure the neosarcoma. Now that the Star Lord is wrecked, I may not be able to get there for months, and that will be too late. If I'm going to die, I'd rather stay with the ship and get it over with."