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“Trying what?” Tony asked, in an odd and mystified tone.
“Are you Rodonover?” she asked.
Tony’s skin prickled. He stepped up to the girl. “Who are you, and where did you come from?”
“You’re not Rodonover! You’re—oh, God! You’re the Other People!” she said. Tony noticed now that her accent was British. And he was suddenly sure that she did not belong to Hendron’s camp, or to Ransdell’s. She had not been in Michigan. She had not come to Bronson Beta with them. But her use of the phrase Other People startled him.
“We come from earth,” he said. “We’re Americans.”
She swayed dazedly, and Williamson took her arm.
“Better duck the lights,” Tony said.
They were in the dark again.
The girl sniffled and shook herself in a little shuddering way, and suddenly poured out a babble of words to which they listened with astonishment.
“I’ve been a prisoner—or something like it—since—the destruction of earth. To-day I escaped in this van. I’d been running it. That was my job. I knew you were somewhere out here, and I wanted to tell you about us.”
“We’ll walk back,” Tony said. “Can we pass that thing?”
Von Beitz looked. “Ja,” he said. He had never spoken German to them before, but now in his intense excitement, he was using his mother tongue.
Tony took the girl’s arm. “We’re Americans. You seem to know about us. Please try to explain yourself.”
“I will.” She paused, and thought. They walked toward the silent, waiting train. “You know that other space-ships left earth besides yours?”
Tony said grimly: “We do.”
“You’ve been attacked. Of course. One ship left from Eastern As
ia. Its crew were mixed nationalities.”
“We know that.”
“They’re living in a city—a city that belonged to the original inhabitants of this place—north of here.”
“And we know that too.”
“Good. A ship also left the Alps. An English ship.”
“So—”
“I was on that ship. The Eastern Asiatic expedition came through safely. We came down in a fog. We fell into a lake. Half of us, nearly, were drowned. The Russians and Japs—and the others—found us the next day. They fought us. Since then—they’ve made us work for them. Whoever wouldn’t—they killed.”
“Good God! How many—”
“There were three hundred and sixty-seven of us left,” she said. “Now—there are about three hundred and ten.”
The truck loomed up ahead. Tony spoke rapidly. “We are moving from our camp at night. We intend to occupy a city before morning. You’ll come with us. My name, by the way, is Tony Drake.”
He felt her hand grasp his own.
“Mine is—or was—Lady Cynthia Cruikshank.”
“Peter!”
Vanderbilt sprang from the trailer and ran up the road. “You safe, Tony?”
