Why?"
"He's missing," said Bell apprehensively. "Alicia says he took a gun. A
gun's gone, anyhow. He's vanished!"
Cochrane swore under his breath. A fool asserting his dignity with a gun
could be a serious matter indeed. He switched on the control-room
lights. He was not there. They went down and hunted over the main
saloon. He was not there. Then Holden called harshly from the next deck
down.
There was Alicia by the inner airlock door. Her face was deathly pale.
She had opened the door. The outer door was open too--and it had not
been opened since this last landing by anybody else. The landing-sling
cables were run out. They swung slowly in the light that fell upon them
from the inside of the ship.
A smell came in the opening. It was the smell of beasts. It was a musky,
ammoniacal smell, somehow not alien even though it was unfamiliar. There
were noises outside in the night. Grunting sounds. Snortings. There were
such sounds as a vast concourse of grazing creatures would make in the
night-time, when gathered by thousands and myriads for safety and for
rest.
"He--went out," said Alicia desperately. "He meant to punish us.
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