He stared. "No. What's your idea? Pressure porte?"
"There's also a pressure porte in the dome, just over the control turret. If we can get some Erentz pressure suits down in the keel—"
Whether he understood me or not, I didn't stop to find out. I had still only a very vague idea myself, just the glimmer of a desperate plan which might work out.
"You better lead," I suggested. "I'll direct you. Len Smith showed me down there. If we run into anybody you can fool them long enough for me to jump them."
Unless it might be the Martian, with his belt bristling with electronic guns. Vehemently I prayed we could keep clear of him. Silently, furtively, we padded into the lower corridor. No sound. With young Blake close ahead of me, we went down onto the mid-level catwalk. Still there was nothing save eerie lights and deserted rooms. Nothing? A ghastly reek came through a doorway at me. I glanced in.
"The dead," Blake whispered with a shudder. "Said they were going to cast them out a porte, but they didn't yet."
The dead. That catwalk room was a reeking, ghastly charnel house. A good thirty bodies—men, women and children of three worlds, piled in a horrible litter. I gasped. All the passengers were here. There had been no disembarking of passengers, as Torio had ironically described to Nina.
We went on. Descended another level. We were in the keel now. Suddenly footsteps sounded on the catwalk above us. One of the crew passed along it. Fortunately he did not look down through the grid.
"Got by that by a margin," I whispered. "Straight ahead, Jim. Then half a flight down."