Behind him came the small group who had been closest to us in space. They were doing their best to stay calm, but there was a slight flicker of apprehension in their eyes. Our section had been the first to disembark, because Littlefield had agreed with me that it might have seemed a little strange if I'd been accorded that privilege and it had been denied to the others. Why give anyone who might have outwitted every screening precaution the idea that I might be a man apart, with so big a job awaiting me on Mars that getting started on it without delay was damned important to me. It was natural enough for one or two sections to be cleared fast and emerge with the Commander. But others would have to await their turn in line and quarantine checkups could drag along for hours.
"It's funny how long it takes to get even a little lower when you're this high up," Joan said, her fingers tightening on my arm. "We're not anything like as high as when we started. But nothing down below looks any larger."
"We're not a fourth of the way down, and the human eye is a very poor judge of distances," I said, reassuringly. "It would be better if you let go of my arm and just kept your right hand on the rail. We sway more this way."
"When you look down from the observation roof of the North-Western University Building you can see all of New Chicago, and practically half of Lake Michigan," she complained breathlessly. "But it never made me feel as giddy as this."
"You had a firmer support under you," I said. "But not a safer one. There's no danger at all. You can be absolutely sure of that. What could happen to us?"
It was one of those silly questions you sometimes ask when you want to reassure someone you're a little concerned about. But a silly question can sometimes be answered in a totally unexpected way—suddenly, terribly and with explosive violence. It can be answered by a voice of thunder out of the sky, or a wild, savage cry in the night, or in a quieter way, but with just as terrifying an outcome. There are a hundred cataclysms of nature which can give the lie to what you thought was only a silliness.
No matter where you are or how secure you feel, never ask what could happen in a world where nothing is sure, where no one is ever completely safe. Death is death. From end to end of his big estate may be a lifetime's journey for some men. But he can cover the distance with the speed of light, because Death is one space traveler—the only one—who knows exactly how to outdistance light.
Even if you're alone in a steel-walled vault it's a dangerous question to ask. It's ten times as dangerous when you're descending a swaying metal corkscrew forty million miles from Earth and there may be someone eighty feet above you who has failed twice as Death's emissary and would be covered with shame if it happened again.
I felt hardly anything for an instant when the dart sliced deep into the soft flesh between my shoulder blades. I didn't even know it was a dart and kept right on walking. It was as if a bee had stung me—a tired bee who couldn't sting very hard. There was just a little stab of pain, a burning sensation that lasted less than a second.
I felt it, all right. But it didn't startle me enough to stop me dead in my tracks. A thing like that seldom does, if you're moving steadily forward. It takes a second or two after you've felt the pain for the implications to dawn on you.