This victory was still too new to be fully realized. Larsen now stood staring with hot eyes at money. Shaken out of its tightly wrapped parcels, there were bushels of it. It fluttered in the air, piled up a foot deep on the floor. The members of the Theban's crew were drunk with triumph and half crazy with rejoicing. Not one had yet realized that this was too much money to be divided or shared, too much to gamble with. Spinning and showering in the air, its final possession was yet to be determined, and only Larsen realized how that was likely to be arranged.
His eyes burned. But even he was only exploring what such loot amounted to. It would take time for him to work out every detail. But he must let his crewmen gloat and rejoice insanely. They had, for the time being, no ability to think of anything but their triumph. They tore the money parcels open, shouting. They flung thick handfuls - hundreds of thousands of credits - of money in each other's faces as if it were confetti. They tossed double armfuls towards the ceiling of the crew's quarters and let it shower down upon them. They howled when one of their number slipped upon piled-up money and fell to the floor. They began crazily to bury him in money, howling with laughter at the excruciating humour of the practice.
Outside the air lock, Horn drew back, making inarticulate noises of frustration. Ginny was in the Theban. She'd been in there a minute. Two. Perhaps three minutes. She'd been in the ship a hundred and eighty seconds, together with the other castaways and some forty million credits in currency. A part of Horn's mind gibbered over what might happen to her presently.
But there was a cold and acid-thinking part of his brain that spoke icily. No man, drunk with joy over riches, will turn to unrelated enormities until his first intoxication has worn off. The crew of the Theban hadn't yet realized that now they must set about murdering each other. It was evident that none of them could play fair with another when so much money was at stake. But for now they thought exclusively of the money. Two of their number literally wallowed in it, laughing foolishly and throwing the printed credit notes about as if splashing in water. It would be some while yet before they realized what must soon happen.
Danger to the prisoners would not begin for a while yet. It might be delayed again when these men, so rich in stolen money, began to suspect each other of plots and counter-plots, and of murders intended which must be prevented by other murders committed first. Or the prisoners might be seized upon as a distraction, to pretend that no such ideas were entertained by anyone. Their fate might be debated and carried out simply to delay the crewmen's destruction of each other. But in the far, deep recesses of his mind, every man of the Theban's company actually knew that their number would be cut down by murder until no more than two, and more likely one, bloody-handed survivor owned all the riches now strewn on the floor.
These savage, frigid thoughts went through a part of Horn's mind that the rest of it ignored. He battered at the air lock, crying out raging curses. But the cold and acidly logical part of his mind went on. It predicted that for minutes yet there would be happy delirium within the ship. Only when some traces of calm returned would his hammering on the air lock door be heard. But in time even men half crazy with riches would notice vaguely that there was something calling for attention. Oh, yes! The door.
The separate, emotionless part of Horn's mind told him what he must do. It didn't suggest this action or that. It told him what must happen when the air lock door was opened. It told him to do this and that, to bring about the action.
He went to the pile of animal carcasses with their writhing cover of many-mouthed beasts. These were somehow more revolting because they not only hunted, lying in wait on the ground, and fastened themselves to branches to trap tree-dwelling creatures, but were also carrion eaters, devouring meat they had not killed themselves. All carnivorous animals despise the caters of rotten meat. Man is a carnivore. Even now and even in his present frenzy, Horn despised the beast he chose by dim starlight and poked with the muzzle of his blast rifle. It flung flailing tentacles up with strictly reflex ferocity, and seized the rifle barrel. It wound itself, slavering, upon the metal. It constricted, making feeble growling noises, trying in blind malevolence to begin to devour the thing that had touched it.
Horn ran with it towards the Theban, standing tall in the starlight. He swung the blast rifle in a wide vertical arc, with a jerk at the end. The glistening horror slipped off. It soared, and hit the plating of the Theban with a wet and disgusting sound. It fell to the ground, squirming.
He ran back, stabbed at the centre of another wet and writhing beast with the rifle. The thing made noises and clung, all its mouths vainly haggling at the metal weapon. Horn carried the beast away from the mass of its fellows. He swung it. It hit the Theban's landing fin.
Horn was not an edifying sight, just then, nor did the noises he made sound particularly human as he ran back and forth and back and forth, ferrying things that looked like fungus to where he could hurl them a last forty or fifty feet to strike the spaceship and flail wildly, hating everything, where they fell from it.
Not all acted in exactly the same manner. One swung some of its snaky arms, while others clung to the rifle. One of those arms tried to encircle Horn's wrist. He stopped long enough to lean his wrist on the ground and stamp on the thing that gripped it. It let go, making bubbling noises, but its other arms clung to the blast rifle until Horn flung this beast after the rest.
There were a dozen of the monsters about the air lock when Horn began to beat upon the door again. Five were piled together, struggling brainlessly to envelop each other, within two yards of his feet. There were other single ones, and pairs and triads of them, no farther away.
The castaways and the money and the hunting party that had brought joy to the Theban had now been inside the ship for more than five minutes. And, save for Larsen, no member of the Theban's crew was wholly sane because of his rejoicing. Still, half crazed with blissful ownership of riches, the crew's rejoicing was not quite as frenzied as it had been. And somebody heard the steady, resumed battering on the air lock door.
One crewman continued to roll on the floor, flinging handfuls of money about him. But the game was suddenly flat and foolish. Somebody was battering at the air lock door. Anything might have happened. The banging was resolute and determined.
Someone said, "Somebody's outside."
Nobody asked who. Nobody checked to see who it might be. The man who'd been rolling in the money got up and went clattering to open the door. He didn't think. He went - and other men followed him - to let in one of their number who hadn't been gleefully insane over the possession of millions and millions and millions of credits in currency, now strewn crazily on the floor of the crew's quarters.
The man who'd been rolling in money zestfully brushed a credit note from his clothing as if it were trash. He opened the outer air lock door. "We left you out!" he babbled gleefully. "Come in an' have a few millions."
From the darkness outside, Horn said in a thick, strangled voice, "I'm Horn. Tell Larsen I'll make a deal to run your engines now. Tell him!"
It was a shock to those who heard him. It was joyful, a glorious shock. All by itself it was intoxicating to know that Horn would return and the engines would run and the Theban could take to space again.
Larsen, even, was jolted by this superlative ending of everything that was left to be done. He rasped, "Bring him in!"
Men flung the air lock door wide. The light in there was faint. It did not illuminate the ground. Men babbled zestfully, tipsy with rejoicing and triumph and the end of everything they had worried about up to now. From now on they might have other things to worry about, but for the moment they knew purest relief and satisfaction.