"I think," said the blue-clad officer, "that if it won't incommode you too much to hold this acceleration a bit longer—"
"Not at all," said Mury, and Ryd silently but no less hysterically cursed his facile confidence.
"... I'll cross over again and send a ship's doctor to attend to your astrogator. A shot in the arm should bring him around."
Mury nodded placidly. The officer turned casually, spoke to the two blue-chromiumed robots, who faced about smartly; then, snapping his fingers, their master wheeled once more. "Just a moment. I almost forgot this.... Strangely enough, one of my men stumbled over it in your starboard lock." He fumbled inside his tunic a moment, displayed in his hand a heavy .20 service flame gun.
A flat and terrible silence lay in the control room. Then Mury broke it, as it had to be broken quickly:
"We weren't supposed to have any arms aboard. I can't say where that came from."
"Can't say, eh?" said the other musingly. Ryd, cold sweat on his forehead, stared in horrid fascination, first at the man and then at the fighter robots. He tensed himself to fight back, now, at the last, like a cornered rat—he hardly knew how or why.
With a shrug, the officer dropped the weapon into his pocket. "Ah, well—so many of these little mysteries remain just that. We mustn't hold up Terra's power supply." He turned once more to go. "I'll have the medico here in a flicker."
The trio passed out through the whispering locks, out to the waiting spaceboat. Ryd found that his mouth was parchment-dry; he stared at the apparently unshaken Mury, and drew a shuddering breath.
"I guess," he said jerkily, "we fooled them."