m fairly normal Earth-gravity
was apparent. I rang a tentative inquiry signal; the operator in the
hull-magnetizer control answered that he was at his post.

The line of men were first to descend. Dr. Frank led them. He flashed a
look of farewell up at me and Snap as he went down the incline with the
chained men passengers after him.

Motley procession! Twenty odd, dishevelled, half-clothed men of three
worlds. The changing, lightening gravity on the incline caught them. Dr.
Frank bounded up to the rail under the impetus of his step: caught and
held himself, drew himself back. The line swayed. In the dim, blue-lit
glare it seemed unreal, crazy. A grotesque dream of men descending a
plank.

They reached the forest glade. Stood swaying, afraid at first to move.
The purple night crowded them; they stood gazing at this strange world,
their new prison.

"Now the women."

Miko was shoving the women to the head of the incline. I could feel
Moa's steady gaze upon me. Her knife-blade gleamed in the turret light.

She murmured again, "In a few minutes you can ring us away, Gregg."

* * * * *

I felt like an actor awaiting his cue in the wings of some turgid drama
the plot of which he did not know. Venza was near the head of the
incline. Some of the women and children were on it. A woman screamed.
Her child had slipped from her hand, bounded up over the rail, and
fallen. Hardly fallen--floated down to the ground, with flailing arms
and legs, landing in the dark ferns, unharmed. Its terrified wail came
up.

There was a confusion on the incline. Venza, still on the deck, seemed
to send a look of appeal to the turret. My cue?

I slid my hand to the light switchboard. It was near my knees. I pulled
a switch. The blue-lit deck beneath the turret went dark.

I recall an instant of horrible, tense silence, and in the gloom beside
me I was aware of Moa moving. I felt a thrill of instinctive fear--would
she plunge that knife into me?

The silence of the darkened deck was broken with a confusion of sounds.
A babble of voices; a woman passenger's scream; shuffling of feet; and
above it all, Miko's roar:

"Stand quiet! Everyone! No movement!"

On the descending incline there was chaos. The disembarking women were
clinging to the gang-rail; some of them had evidently surged over it and
fallen. Down on the ground in the purple-shadowed starlight I could
vaguely see the chained line of men. They t