He whispered, "I'm Jim—Jim Blake."
Nina's brother! My S.S. boss had mentioned him; mysteriously he had disappeared. He was loosening the wires which bound me; and his swift whispers told me: Like his father, he had wanted to get secretly to the Moon. Throughout all the mutiny he had had no opportunity of doing anything which seemed better than posing as one of the villains. Only once had he had any chance to communicate with Nina—that time when he had gone to her room, telling her that he was going to try and kill Mokk and Torio before the attack started, and thus ward it off. And that he had not been able to do.
He was only a boy really, barely twenty; he was trembling with eagerness and excitement now as he cast me loose and I rose up out of the bunk and stood beside him.
"You armed?" I whispered.
"No; only this knife. I've tried to get something else but can't."
"Any of the crew with weapons?"
"No, I don't think so. Knives, machinery bars and things like that. Mokk and Torio seemed to have everything."
"How many in the crew?"
"Five, and me. One got killed in the fight. Another wounded. There were two or three others planted among the passengers. Maybe more. They got killed, too. Oh, what shall we do? All I could think of was to get here and release you."