"I showed you. The atom cannons, the weapons that were meant to repel any hypothetical enemy attack when the station is freewheeling in space. There are gun ports on every curve, Ray." He sighed. "Two hours ago I was a peaceable man, I was here because I loved peace above everything else. Now I want to keep on killing people."
"They aren't people, they're cave beasts. They admit to being non-human."
"Yes. They make a good case for it, too. But it's too much like shooting sitting ducks, or fish in a barrel, for my taste."
"If you'd seen them gunning those poor workers, you wouldn't talk about sitting ducks. They're merciless. And by the way," I said, "why didn't you see that? Why didn't you cut loose with your wonder weapons during the fight?"
"Ray, this wheel is soundproof. It was only by chance that I happened to glance out, by way of a viewer, as you came up the ramp. And of course then I wasn't fully aware of the extent of the killing, or I might have used the guns instead of trying to talk to them." Howard sighed again. "I'm not the violent sort. I guess I wouldn't have thought of the guns anyhow." He looked thoughtfully at me. "I wonder why the Marines didn't radio to us when it began?"
"The Old Companions are hand-jamming the island."
"Oh." He glanced at the corner, where Trutch lay, bound hand and foot and grimacing at us. He was our only prisoner. "It's a fairy tale," he said. "It's unreal!"
"It won't be so unreal if the other Neanderthal musters succeed in blasting us out into an orbit, Howard."
Nessa began to cry. I wouldn't have known it, she did it so silently, but I happened to see a tear glisten on her cheek. "What is it, honey?" I asked, going to her.
"The baby," she whispered, and then she was choked and couldn't speak. But it hit me at once: acceleration would at the least lose us our child, and probably also kill my wife.