Doctor Umbana jumped out of his car. "Oafs. Peasants. What right have you got to stop us? I'm a free man. Get out of my way."
MacFarland stepped in front of the angry biochemist. "Get back," he hissed. "Do you want to go to jail? I'll handle this."
"You're the man that brought us here. Kick them aside and drive through. Won't you go to jail for your country?"
Lauchstein bellowed with laughter. "Let MacFarland handle this," Doctor Warren said. "Pete, come on back to the car."
Doctor Umbana glared at his colleagues. "I won't stand for this. We're free scientists. We have the right to travel where we please."
MacFarland swore to himself. Already passengers were leaving the terminal and walking toward the airliner.
The crowd, sounding even noisier than it had before, was bearing down on the airport. Sabo would hold them, of course, but their pleas to the scientists would be impossible to silence.
Crawford Bell jerked his thumb at the enemy lines. "They're carrying masks. We can't use gas on them."
MacFarland could see the future as plainly as if it were already a memory. The situation had a logic which could lead to only one solution. It was a solution he had been dreading since his first day in Belderkan.