Beyond the kitchen, in the narrow quarters of the servants, he realized that he had lost his direction.
Behind him was a tumult of fear and menace.
Half those who glimpsed his flight screamed and fled or hid.
But another half, made daring by the magic promise of that half-million, shouted to the pursuers behind, or snatched at weapons of their own.
But the geopellor was swifter than all the hue and cry.
Chan dropped upon his feet, walked breathless around the turn of a corridor, and met a yellow-capped porter hastening with a bag.
“Which way,” he gasped, “to the docks?”
“That way, sir.” The man pointed.
“To your left, beyond the pools.
But I’m afraid, sir, you’ll find the ships all booked—”
His mouth fell open as Chan lifted into the air and soared over his head.
“The Basilisk!” he began to scream.
“This way!
To the docks!”
The pursuit followed his voice.
But Chan’s plunging flight had already carried him into the “hanging pools” that were one of the New Moon’s novel attractions—great spheres of water, each held aloft by a gravity-plate core of its own, each illuminated with colored light that turned it to a globe of changing fire.
The swimmers had fled. Chan threaded a swift way among the spheres.
He heard an alarm siren moaning behind him.
And suddenly the gravity-circuits must have been cut off, for the shimmering spheres of water turned to plunging falls.
Already, however, the geopellor had flung him over the rail of a high balcony.
He burst through a door beyond, and came into the vast space at the docks.
The immense floor was crowded, now, with gay-clad thousands, swept into panic by fear of the Basilisk, fighting for a place on the out-bound ships.
Leaning for a moment against the balcony door, Chan caught his breath.
He must have a space suit. There were space suits in the locker rooms beyond this frightened crowd, beside the great valve where he had entered the New Moon.
He could fly across the mob, he thought, in seconds and with little risk.
But sight of him flying would surely turn fear to stark panic.
Many would doubtless be trampled and maimed.
After a second, he went down the steps on foot, and pressed into the fighting throng.
That was the longer way.
It meant the danger that the valve-crew would be warned against him.
Yet he could not take the other way.
It took him endless minutes to push through fringes of the crowd.
He heard the distant sob of sirens, and the thunder of annunciators beating against the voice of the mob.
He knew the hunt was spreading, and was uneasily aware of his head towering above all those about him.
But he came at last to the little door marked Employees Only, and slipped through it into the locker rooms.
Here was less confusion than he found anywhere—the workers in the great sign were used to danger.
He hurried to the locker where he had left his armor, stripped off his borrowed clothing, flung himself into the space suit, and strode toward the great air lock.
The inner valve was open.
A crew of silver-armored technicians were just marching out.
Chan entered, as the last of them came through, and made an urgent gesture to the man at the controls.
That man had already stiffened, however, listening.
“Warning!” a magnetic speaker was crackling.
“Close all locks— until Derron is caught.
This man is now attempting to escape from the New Moon.
There is a half million reward for him, dead or alive.
Derron is six feet three, believed—”
Chan saw quick suspicion change to deadly certainty in the eyes of the valve-keeper.
He heard the beginning of a shout and caught the glint of weapons.
But the geopellor was already lifting him toward the lock.
His bright-clad fist shattered the glass over the emergency lever—intended to be used only if the great valve was closing on a man’s body.