Space Prison | Page 3

it.
Gern guards will be sent immediately to make this division and you
will wait in your compartments for them. You will obey their orders
promptly and without annoying them with questions. At the first
instance of resistance or rebellion this offer will be withdrawn and the
cruisers will go their way again."
* * * * *
In the silence following the ultimatum she could hear the soft, wordless
murmur from the other compartments, the undertone of anxiety like a
dark thread through it. In every compartment parents and children,
brothers and sisters, were seeing one another for the last time....

The corridor outside rang to the tramp of feet; the sound of a dozen
Gerns walking with swift military precision. She held her breath, her
heart racing, but they went past her door and on to the corridor's end.
There she could faintly hear them entering compartments, demanding
names, and saying, "Out--out!" Once she heard a Gern say,
"Acceptables will remain inside until further notice. Do not open your
doors after the Rejects have been taken out."
Billy touched her on the hand. "Isn't Daddy going to come?"
"He--he can't right now. We'll see him pretty soon."
She remembered what the Gern commander had said about the Rejects
being permitted to take their personal possessions. She had very little
time in which to get together what she could carry....
There were two small bags in the compartment and she hurried to pack
them with things she and Dale and Billy might need, not able to know
which of them, if any, would be Rejects. Nor could she know whether
she should put in clothes for a cold world or a hot one. The Gern
commander had said the Rejects would be left on an Earth-type planet
but where could it be? The Dunbar Expedition had explored across five
hundred light-years of space and had found only one Earth-type world:
Athena.
The Gerns were almost to her door when she had finished and she
heard them enter the compartments across from her own. There came
the hard, curt questions and the command: "Outside--hurry!" A woman
said something in pleading question and there was the soft thud of a
blow and the words: "Outside--do not ask questions!" A moment later
she heard the woman going down the corridor, trying to hold back her
crying.
Then the Gerns were at her own door.
She held Billy's hand and waited for them with her heart hammering.
She held her head high and composed herself with all the determination

she could muster so that the arrogant Gerns would not see that she was
afraid. Billy stood beside her as tall as his five years would permit, his
teddy bear under his arm, and only the way his hand held to hers
showed that he, too, was scared.
The door was flung open and two Gerns strode in.
The were big, dark men, with powerful, bulging muscles. They
surveyed her and the room with a quick sweep of eyes that were like
glittering obsidian, their mouths thin, cruel slashes in the flat, brutal
planes of their faces.
"Your name?" snapped the one who carried a sheaf of occupation
records.
"It's"--she tried to swallow the quaver in her voice and make it cool and
unfrightened--"Irene Lois Humbolt--Mrs. Dale Humbolt."
The Gern glanced at the papers. "Where is your husband?"
"He was in the X-ray room at--"
"You are a Reject. Out--down the corridor with the others."
"My husband--will he be a--"
"Outside!"
It was the tone of voice that had preceded the blow in the other
compartment and the Gern took a quick step toward her. She seized the
two bags in one hand, not wanting to release Billy, and swung back to
hurry out into the corridor. The other Gern jerked one of the bags from
her hand and flung it to the floor. "Only one bag per person," he said,
and gave her an impatient shove that sent her and Billy stumbling
through the doorway.
She became part of the Rejects who were being herded like sheep down
the corridors and into the port airlock. There were many children
among them, the young ones frightened and crying, and often with only

one parent or an older brother or sister to take care of them. And there
were many young ones who had no one at all and were dependent upon
strangers to take their hands and tell them what they must do.
When she was passing the corridor that led to the X-ray room she saw a
group of Rejects being herded up it. Dale was not among them and she
knew, then, that she and Billy would never see him again.
* * * * *
"Out from the ship--faster--faster----"
The commands of the Gern