Somebody came clattering up the stairs from below.
"Johnny?" It was Bell. "Is he up here?"
Cochrane released Babs.
"No. He's not here. Why?"
"He's missing," said Bell apprehensively. "Alicia says he took a gun. A gun's gone, anyhow. He's vanished!"
Cochrane swore under his breath. A fool asserting his dignity with a gun could be a serious matter indeed. He switched on the control-room lights. He was not there. They went down and hunted over the main saloon. He was not there. Then Holden called harshly from the next deck down.
There was Alicia by the inner airlock door. Her face was deathly pale. She had opened the door. The outer door was open too—and it had not been opened since this last landing by anybody else. The landing-sling cables were run out. They swung slowly in the light that fell upon them from the inside of the ship.
A smell came in the opening. It was the smell of beasts. It was a musky, ammoniacal smell, somehow not alien even though it was unfamiliar. There were noises outside in the night. Grunting sounds. Snortings. There were such sounds as a vast concourse of grazing creatures would make in the night-time, when gathered by thousands and myriads for safety and for rest.
"He—went out," said Alicia desperately. "He meant to punish us. He's a spoiled little boy. We weren't nice to him. And—he was afraid of us too! So he ran away to make us sorry!"
Cochrane went to look out of the lock and to call Johnny Simms back. He gazed into absolute blackness on the ground. He felt a queasy giddiness because there was no hand-railing at the outer lock door and he knew the depth of the fall outside. He raged, within himself. Johnny Simms would feel triumphant when he was called. He would require to be pleaded with to return. He would pompously set terms for returning before he was killed....