"Just us," I murmured. "Where's Dr. Frye?"
Polter grimly gestured. "Down there—see him? Damned traitor. I drilled him. See him?"
The X-87 was still on her course. The forward deck triangle was still bathed in moonlight, save that gases blurred it. The forward lookout's telescope lay in a wreck, with his body upon it. Other motionless forms were strewn about; chairs were overturned—those same chairs where Nina and the rest of us had gathered in the moonlight so short a time ago. Dr. Frye's thin body lay huddled down there.
I was aware now that all the fighting had ceased; there was only the distant murmurs of the terrified passengers, in their cabins beneath us. The mutineers everywhere had won; I could not doubt it. The thing was a swift massacre. Those crew members who had tried to be loyal were all dead. I stared, from the tiny hatch-opening in the bow, which led down to the forward messroom, a hand cautiously appeared. There was a stab of flame; a report; an old-fashioned leaden slug thudded harmlessly against a corner of the catwalk bridge, only a few feet from the slit at which we were peering. And in the silence, the sniper's chuckle sounded.
At my elbow, suddenly there was a buzzing. Green turned his head slightly. "Call—coming from the main gravity plate room," he murmured. "Answer it, Penelle."
I moved toward the little mouthpiece. But Mackensie had heard it and came running in from the adjacent chart room. "I'll take it. Keep at your lookouts, everybody—this may be a ruse to catch us off guard."
I could hear the tiny voice coming from the receiver as Mackensie clapped it to his ear.
"This is Torio," the voice said suavely. "Have you had enough, Captain?"
"You go to hell," Mackensie roared.
"That would be very nice, Captain, but it's more likely to be your own destination." I could picture the sleek, ironically smiling Venus man down there at the speaking tube. "We demand your surrender now—if you do not wish to die."