The aged scientist fought off the grim spectre valiantly. He patted Ulana's hand as his weak voice resumed. "You will take care of her I know, Carson. Take her with you to your own world; make her happy." He fell silent once more.
"But how?" Blaine whispered.
"Oh yes, I am forgetting. The side passage—next one on the right—it leads to a storeroom of the oxygen helmets and vacuum-tight suits in which you can step forth from the adjoining airlock. Your space ship is there ... unharmed.... In it you will be able to return ... and...."
But Dantor's spirit had fled the pain-racked body. Blaine closed his lids and stretched him on the hard metal floor, crossing the thin hands on his breast. Ulana sobbed openly for a moment and then bowed her head in silence.
"The last of the Rulans," Blaine said softly, looking down at all that was mortal of the Rulan scientist.
"No," Ulana whispered, "I am the last, my Carson."
"You'll become a good American, sweetheart," he said gently. "That is, if we get away from here." There was no time to be lost, at that. At any moment this Denari might find them. "Come," he begged, drawing her from the body, "we must hurry."
Following the passage indicated by Dantor they came at last to an open door. A noticeable draft blew outward and Blaine thought grimly of the scenes that were being enacted throughout all Antrid. The air that made life possible was escaping. And the news broadcasts from Ilen-dar would have notified the entire population by this time. There would be rioting, panics, murder and suicide in the cities of the accursed Llotta and in their subject countries. A frantic effort of the scientists to stop the gap would avail them nothing: it was an impossible task now. The construction of the great shell had been a different matter; there was some natural atmosphere remaining in those days. And, finally, they would suffocate, every last one of them. They'd die miserably, purple of face and with swollen tongues protruding.
The open door led to a railed-in balcony that looked out over the dome room. Machines still hummed there but the place was deserted save for a few scattered corpses: probably those of the Llotta who had objected when Denari usurped the throne.