t deck.

The incline went over the hull side and touched the ground.

"Enough!" Miko roared. "The men first. Hahn, move the women back!
Coniston, pile those caskets to the side. Get out of the way, Prince."

Anita was down there. I saw her at the edge of the group of women.
Venza was near her.

Miko shoved her. "Get out of the way, Prince. You can help Coniston.
Have the things ready to throw off."

Five of the steward crew were at the head of the incline. Miko shouted
up at me:

"Haljan, hold our shipboard gravity normal."

"Yes."

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, disheveled, half-clothed men of these
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 gaze upon me. Her knife gleamed in the turret light.

She murmured again, "In a few moments you can bring 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
feet