"Run! Tell Miko to come—tell him you heard a shout. He won't suspect you!"
"But, Gregg—"
"You mustn't be found out. You're our only hope, Anita! I'll hide, fix the cloak, or get back to my cubby. We'll try again."
It decided her. She scurried down the corridor. I whirled the other way. The steward's shout might not have been heard.
Then realization flashed to me. That steward would be revived. He was one of Miko's men. He would be revived and tell what he had seen and heard. Anita's disguise would be revealed.
A cold-blooded killing, I do protest, went against me. But it was necessary. I flung myself upon him. I beat his skull with the metal of my cylinder.
I stood up. My hood had fallen back from my head. I wiped my bloody hands on my useless cloak. I had smashed the cylinder.
"Haljan!"
Anita's voice! A sharp note of horror and warning. I became aware that in the corridor, forty feet down its dim length, Miko had appeared with Anita behind him. His bullet projector was leveled. It spat at me. But Anita had pulled at his arm.
The explosive report was sharply deafening in the confined space of the corridor. With a spurt of flame the leaden pellet struck over my head against the vaulted ceiling.