"Don't be sentimental, Hilda. Get ready to run for it when we pass that wall." He took her right hand in his left and snapped off the raditype. "Now!"
She had no choice, but, as they ran around the corner of the wall, they crashed into a group of surgeons coming toward the planes.
"Hold them!" cried Dr. Henderson. "They've done damage enough already. Put them on a plane. Perhaps we can claim the first broadcast was an impersonation, if they are gone."
John broke one pair of spectacles and started one nosebleed dripping down a doctor's immaculate gown, but muscles haven't much chance against the rigidity serum. He yielded to the hypodermic and did not come to during the brief ambulance ride, nor while they were being loaded onto the battered old Space Tramp. Hilda continued to scribble her antiquated shorthand surreptitiously on the pad, but they had appropriated her raditype. She was not given the rigidity serum until she was strapped onto a sleeping shelf in the ship. Only a small group of officers in the control room were conscious of the sudden inertia strain, when the rockets thundered out through earth's atmosphere. All the patients were mercifully in the long sleep that would seem like a minute of time, when awakened after months of racing through silent outer space.
John felt the prick of the needle that awakened him to consciousness, through a vague haze of half forgetfulness. Suddenly he remembered, and tore feverishly at the straps holding him down. In a moment he was free from their restraint, but laughing in vexation at his forgetfulness when his exertions threw him upward, and he hung suspended in the cabin space dangling from the strap still held in his right hand. He had forgotten they had left gravity behind. He pulled himself down and seized the sleeping shelf with his left hand. Clinging to it, he sidled along toward the forward port. Patients, under their straps as he passed, were slowly coming back to life, and they stared at him frightened, or amused or indifferent, according to their conditions. The attendants had gone from the cabin. At last John could see through a six foot plate of hardened glass. The view was slightly hazy, and unreal. Below their plunging ship was the Red Planet, still a vague sphere. The orange glow, familiar to earth telescopes, was gone now. The vast stretches of red desert and darker marsh areas became faintly distinguishable. Those regular lines of water channels from the opposing polar caps became visible to the naked eye, and were far less geometrical than earth pictures had shown them. It was summer in the northern hemisphere, and its polar cap had receded.
The one previous expedition to this dying planet had been given little publicity and John was fascinated by the view before him. At last they entered the thin atmosphere. Instant by instant, the deserts and low rounded hills grew visible. Lines of vegetation along the water channels turned green. Finally, the forward jets of the ship roared and John was crashed against the rear cabin wall, by the change of speed. He crawled painfully back to his sleeping shelf and strapped himself in. The rumor was true—He was on a ship of doom—and Hilda—where was she? Had she escaped? There was nothing he could do. The ship screamed into thicker, lower atmosphere and vibrations penetrated her thick hull.
John's memory of previous space trips told him they were nearly ready to land. There was hardly a jar, as they grounded and tilted slowly to rest. Sleepy eyed orderlies came in unsteadily, affected by the lighter gravity. They were pushing a truck full of helmets and oxygen tanks, which they deftly adjusted to the patients.
The men in this cabin were all able to walk and were soon outside the air lock. Following them came stretcher bearers, street roller ambulances, men on crutches, even a few of the more demented in glassite water jackets, from which they peered with dull eyes, as if they were drugged.
Hilda burst free from the second group of women and cried, "John! Oh, John, I'm so glad to find you."