The man wearing general's insignia nodded, while sickness spread over his face. He motioned to one of the others. "Get pics of the wreck, and collect any records you can. The rest of you give Dr. Norden a hand. And hurry! They may have spotted us already!"
The man with the camera went resolutely to work, flashing his shots with a strobe light that blinked twenty-four times a second. Two others began unrolling a stretcher.
Norden shook his head in feeble protest. "I can walk. And I've already collected Hardwick's notebooks."
They set a pace closer to a run than a walk, bouncing ludicrously in the slight gravity of the asteroid. Norden kept up with them easily enough, trying to make sense of his reactions. Most of the fear and tension had left him, as if he'd passed over some hurdles, and was experiencing a resurge of confidence. The military efficiency of his rescuers had also a bracing effect. Maybe he hadn't believed in his rescue until now. But he did feel better, though his eyes went on studying the others cautiously, as if looking for any reaction that might inadvertently betray them.
They reached the ship, and began pulling themselves through its flexible hatch. The leader jerked off his helmet and suit, exposing iron grey hair that contrasted rather startlingly with an almost youthful face. It was the face of a man who hadn't let himself grow soft during the years before the Aliens came. He swung toward Norden.
"How much gravity can you take, Dr. Norden?" he asked. "Six g's?"
"In a hammock, for a few minutes," Norden answered.
They were already heading up the ladder toward the nose of the ship. The general ripped a sling out of its case when they reached the control cabin. He snapped it to its lugs, motioned Norden onto it, and bound him in place in less time than he could have ordered the job done. Then he dropped to his own control seat. "Six g's for five minutes, then hold her at four until I order. Up ship!"
Norden didn't black out during the first five minutes, though the pressure was enough to drive the sling to its bottom mark and make its cables groan in protest. As they switched from six to four gravities, the pressure eased a little.
An hour crept by, and another. When the general finally ordered the drive cut, Norden estimated that they had been under acceleration for nearly five hours and were doing about two million miles an hour. Either the general was crazy, or the ship must have been stocked to the last bin with fuel. They were making more than five times the normal emergency speed.