Wales stepped out, the Venn gun levelled, and Kendrick came out behind him.
Fairlie stopped. The Police officer with him made an uncertain sound and movement.
"Don't be stupid," Fairlie said. "He's got us cold."
He came up a few more steps. He looked up at Wales, and there was in his powerful face an immense disgust.
"You're proud, aren't you, Wales?" said Fairlie. "You think you've done something big and gallant. You've saved, or tried to save, a lot of human lives and that makes you happy." He suddenly raged. "Human refuse! The weak, the unfit, the no-damned-good, that we've been saddled with all our lives here on Earth—and now we must take them with us to drag us all down on Mars."
"Don't, Jay," whispered Martha, and her voice was a painful sound.
Fairlie said:
"Let him. I'd sooner go out now as see all human civilization dragged down out there by the weight of the useless rabble who would be better dead."
Wales said, "You're so sure, just who should live and who should die. You felt such a big man, making secret decisions like that, didn't you? Fairlie, who knows what's best for everybody. You and your pals liked that feeling, didn't you? There have always been characters like you—"
He paused, and then he said, "We're going over to New York. We're going to have Kendrick tell his story to all the millions still on Earth, and it's a story that two of your own men will back up. We're going to try to get every last soul off Earth before Doomsday. But if we don't—"