Norma stumbled from the ladder and started to run. The spider ships loomed menacingly behind her. An army guard started forward to question her, and a jeep leaped suddenly into sight from around the corner of the Administration Building. A heart beat later the jeep skewed around beside her, and Herb, his face twisted with hate and fury cried, "Where's Bud?"
One of the spider ships behind them became airborne; and then a second leaped away.
CHAPTER XII
George was at the controls of the ship. As his hand hovered at the firing stud, he heard someone enter behind him. He turned.
It was the starman. His hair was matted with blood. There was a wild, rebellious glint in his eyes. He snarled like an animal.
"She hit me!" he cried. And then he smashed a fist into George's face. George went down and the starman stepped across him to the control panel. His resentment had been accumulating for a life time. He had just sabotaged two ships and sent his fellow starmen to death at the orders of the Oligarch; and he must have known (even if he told himself otherwise) that he, too, would not return to Brionimar: that alone of all who had been on the surface of Earth, the Oligarch would survive. But even in this knowledge, he had still remained loyal, caught like Herb, like his whole civilization, by the specter of chaos and held helpless. But now, thinking the destruction of Earth a certainty, his resentment rechanneled, he was able to strike—even kill, if necessary—the Oligarch in order to revenge himself upon the Earth girl who had struck him.
He snapped on the scanner and searched the airport. He saw Norma climb into the jeep. He sent the spider ship lumbering toward her. The jeep began to run.
The spider legs moved faster, and the ship, like a drunk, lurched awkwardly across the runway in pursuit. He was no pilot, but his hands jerked levers and twisted wheels and the ship moved. He sighted the underbelly heat ray.