VIII
Gavin's first impression was one of numbing cold. He opened his eyes. Pitch blackness engulfed him. He had difficulty orienting himself. Rather hazily, he recalled the shelling of the cantonment by X's men.
Gradually his mind cleared.
The swift Jovian night had fallen, he perceived, and the temperature had dropped sharply. Only his insulating outer garments had saved him from freezing.
He began to grope around for Nadia's body. He found nothing but bare ground, stones, shrubs.
He sat back on his haunches, getting his bearings. The night pressed against his eyeballs; silence rang in his ears. No popping of dum-dum fire was to be heard. Whether the raiders had won, or Cabot was still in possession of his ship, he couldn't tell. But the fight was over.
X, himself, he realized, couldn't possibly have reached Jupiter yet. Even if he had been aboard one of the ships which had pursued the Nova out from Venus, a whole year must elapse before he could arrive. Then, if X's men had attacked the Nova, they had been planted here earlier and had been waiting in ambush.
That meant X had been tipped off to the location of the hidden slave cantonment on Jupiter.
Something brushed against Gavin's face! It felt like cold fingertips.
Gavin's arms flailed the air in stark terror. He struck a soft, cold, hairless body. There was a barrage of half-human squeaks. The air was full of the fluttering of wings.