A voice was speaking through his suit phone, and he recognized it as Erickson's. "I just came to, tumbled out of that hole in the pilot room, saw the flash of your pistol, and here I am."
The old professor appeared, wobbling slightly, but still game. The flashes toward the mouth of the cave had grown fewer. Leaving Erickson to guard the compartment of the captives, Holden hurried back to the fight. Even as he went, the flashes died out altogether, and he heard Linet's hearty voice in the phone. "Holden, where are you? We've cleaned out them all down here."
Light was now flooding in from outside, and bodies could be seen lying thick on the floor, cold and stiff in death. Sadly Holden recognized many of them as his own men. After a hasty conference with Linet, he gathered together fifteen space suits, and with an escort helping to carry them, he hurried back to Jean.
The door of the air-lock opened as his party approached. They went in, heard the swish of air entering, and in a few minutes the inner door swung wide. A happy crowd of men and women surrounded them, as they rid themselves of their helmets. Holden felt Jean's arms around him, her sweet lips once more on his. For a second they clung together, then parted, for there was work to be done. The space suits were distributed and, as he led the way back to the San Francisco, Jean told him briefly the details of the long year of imprisonment.
"They gave us warning before they rammed us, as they wanted to save the women, for a purpose you can guess. Fortunately, there were never enough of us to go around, and these men, exiles from two planets, were always quarreling among themselves, so we were quite safe. We just existed, praying that some exploring expedition would find us, or that the Silver Death would meet a ship too strong for her to ram and, fleeing here for refuge, be trailed."
Holden sighted Captain Linet hurrying toward them. In the light now flooding the entire cavern, he could see lines of despair and hopelessness written over the florid face.
"What's the matter?"
"Matter enough," came the ominous answer. "The space phone on our ship is entirely disabled. We won't be able to get in touch with the Ganymede or the Los Angeles. In a few days, the hexoxen charges they plant will commence to go off, and that will be the end of us."
Holden stopped, stunned by the news. Fleeting visions of happiness with Jean vanished into thin air. He would be destroyed by the chemical he had invented, with which he had hoped to save the world.