XXIX
Farradyne struggled against his captors. He'd been as blind a fool as he always had been, to let them sit there together. "Let me up!" he stormed. "Let me up so we can escape—"
"Shut the hell up!"
Farradyne struggled.
There was a blasting roar that stunned them all; it shook the Lancaster viciously. The trickle-sound of water through the astrodome was covered by the ear-splitting thunder, but when the tumult died the trickle had become a full stream that came running down the control room stairway in a cataract.
There came another blast, closer still. The lights flickered as the shock of the ship snapped the relays back and forth. Carolyn cried, "Hurry!"
The enemy pilot, lame and cramped from hours of being taped, struggled up the stairs. A moment later, deep in the ship, relays and circuit breakers clicked home.
Farradyne roared, "You fools! Stop that guy aloft! Why do you think I sent Norma Ha—"
Morgan cuffed him backhanded and drove his head hard against the deck. His senses reeled and the sheer physical shock of the next burst made his head roll from side to side.
An upsurge of pressure told Farradyne that the enemy pilot had started to take off from the lake bottom. Flashes of bursting explosive winked at the ports; then the blasts came less shockingly loud as the Lancaster hiked into the open air.