After Worlds Collide (When Worlds Collide 2)

He closed his eyes.

“Did they kidnap you here?” Tony asked.

He thought that Von Beitz nodded an affirmative.

From the outside came a yell of warning from many throats. Tony looked. The gate was open. People were pointing. In the north was a fleet of enemy planes winging toward the spot.

“Hurry!” Tony said to Taylor. “Take his feet. Gently—and fast! They’re going to try to bomb us before we get Von Beitz’ information back to the others!”

As he spoke, he and Taylor were carrying the inert man to the door of the shattered ship.

CHAPTER XVI

HISTORY

THE watchers at the gate of the city ceased to be mere spectators, and poured out. Many were useless; they merely endangered themselves to no purpose. Eliot James, who had the local command, shouted for all but one other, besides himself, to keep under the shield of the city; and he and that other ran forward as Tony and Jack Taylor emerged from the half-wrecked plane and pulled out the limp form of Von Beitz.

The two uninjured men, bearing Von Beitz, began to run across the open space between the city and the ship; and Eliot with his companion, Waterman, ran toward them.

From the north the swarm of pursuing planes approached—the planes of the Other People, of the Vanished People of this planet, which had been appropriated by the “Midianites.”

At least, that was what Eliot believed as he glanced up and saw the great metal larks in the sky. It must be men from the earth who piloted them; yet deep in his thoughts clung the fantastic idea that it might be Bronson Betan hands which piloted these splendid planes, even as Bronson Betan hands and brains had built them a million years ago before the Other People began their frightful drift into the cold and darkness of space between the stars.

Bullets, or some sort of projectiles, splashed up dirt before him and left Eliot no illusions as to the attitude of these pilots, whoever they might be. But he was unhurt; his comrade also was unhurt, and neither Tony nor Jack Taylor stumbled.

The attack from the air ceased; the planes veered away and dispersed so suddenly that it seemed to Eliot that they must have been signaled.

Waterman and he reached Tony and Taylor, and the four bore Von Beitz within the gate, which swiftly was shut behind them.

Women, as well as men, surrounded them. Tony turned at Eve’s touch, and he stared at her dazedly.

“Tony,” she implored him, “are you hurt too? Did they hit you?”

He shook his head; he was panting so violently that any expression of his feelings, as she held to him, was impossible. For a brief moment he caught her hand and held it, but gasped only: “Get Dodson—for—Von Beitz.”

The command was unnecessary. Dodson was already kneeling over the German.

Eliot pressed back the people who crowded too close. The surgeon opened his kit, which had never been far from his hand during the perilous months on this planet. He began to administer drugs. “Half starved,” he muttered. “No bones broken. Exhaustion. In terrible fight. Fists. Knife—at least some one had one in the fight. Wait!”

The German opened his eyes and sat up. “Danke schöne,” he said.

“Not yet!” Dodson warned, pushing his patient back into a reclining position.

“Take your time,” Tony begged him, though he himself jerked with impatience for Von Beitz’ report. He gazed up through the shield over the city into the sky, for the airplanes which had pursued, and which so suddenly had abandoned attack.

“Where are they?” he said to Eliot James.

“Gone.”

“What scared them off?”

“What happened to their other planes before, I guess,” said Eliot.

“Would they all have remembered it together just at the same second?” Tony asked.

Eliot shook his head; the planes were gone, whatever had turned them back; thought of them could engage neither Eliot nor Tony—nor Eve, since they had spared Tony.

She clung close to him in tender concern. They were in the inner edge of the circle, watching the German, who lay now with eyes shut and a scowl on his face.