Guards spun about. Desperately, the nearest tried to form to meet the rush.
Jarl drove the knife deep into a Pervod's breast; blasted a dau back with his ray-gun's full charge. The fierce joy of conflict leaped in him. As from afar, he heard the shouts of his men as they lunged into the fray.
The guards' ranks wavered.
But now those from beyond the carrier were rushing to their aid. Steel clashed on steel. A great bulbous-bodied Thorian hurtled down on Jarl. Its tentacles wrapped round him, crushing him.
Savagely, he slashed at the leathery body; blasted with the ray-gun, straight into the repulsive face.
The Thorian's tentacles fell away. Jarl glimpsed Big Ungo, smashed down a dau with a blow of his one mighty arm. There was a smell of blood and burnt flesh; wild screams of rage and fear and anguish.
"To the ship—!" Jarl shouted. He hacked his way up the blood-slippery ramp; clutched Ungo's belt and half-dragged the Jovian aboard.
The last of the raiders scrambled in behind them. The hatch clanged shut. The ready bell leaped to jangling life.
There was a sudden roar of auxiliary gravicomps. The gyro-indicators jiggled and swayed in their mountings. Men lurched awkwardly, caught momentarily off balance in the crushing force of too-fast acceleration.
Then stability returned. The carrier speared upward, out from Vesta, into the spark-spangled, glittering murk of the boundless astroidal night.