Page:Amazing Stories Volume 15 Number 12.djvu/42

size. Blood gushed from Dane's nostrils, and his tongue swelled until it nearly strangled him.

In arms that were elephantine and weak, he scooped up the moaning girl. Staggering across the floor, he bumped into furniture that his swimming vision failed to register. Dane knew that in another ten seconds his eyes would pop out like corks from an overcharged bottle.

The door loomed ahead of him, a weaving black oblong. Dane fell to his knees as they went through. Then he was crawling back, pulling the heavy steel door closed behind him. It thundered into its frame. Dane had only tightened two of the wing-nuts when a reverberating boom shook the deck and the door bulged outward.

The gods were in a tolerant mood, for the two bolts held. Dane got the others tightened and then crawled down and opened the pressure door. For a moment he could only sit back against the wall and feel the growing pressure soothe his horribly distended limbs. His eyes stopped their throbbing, and blood ceased to jet from his nostrils.

Margo was on her knees where he had left her. Her thin cry came feebly to Dane.

"Dane! Dane! where are you?"

Dane stumbled to her side. He went down on his knees beside her.

"Right here," he whispered. "It's all right, now. The door's going to hold."

"I was afraid—that you were dead!" Margo stammered. She seemed trying to hold her emotions by main force, but suddenly the flimsy wall of propriety fell and her arms went up to slide about his neck. "Oh, Dane—I didn't want to live if you were dead!"

Dane's fingers sank into the soft flesh of her shoulders.

"You don't mean that, Margo!" he said sternly. "There's Kris—you love him . . ."

"Oh, I wish I did! But I—I can't! That night on the knoll, I knew I never could love him. I tried not to love you. But, Dane—I do!"

Dane's arms brought the girl against him. Her lips were warm and soft, and Dane's own lips pressed them crushingly. Then at last, breathless, he released her. Tears shone in Margo's eyes.

"What can we do?" she whispered. "There's Kris and Brooke. You don't love her, Dane—I saw you—in the radio room, this morning—"

The Earthman's answer was to kiss her again, a hard, unyielding kiss that only ended when a bell broke the hush. The sound recalled Dane to all the grim reality around them. He held Margo back and helped her to her feet.

"For our own good, Margo—for everyone's good—we've got to forget this," he said miserably. "You and I were born on wrong sides of the universe. No need to make others suffer for our own bad luck. Kris is mad about you, and I think Brooke loves me. Our happiness would have no foundation if it were built on their misery."

Margo ventured a smile that went poorly with the hurt in her eyes.

"I know. But they can't keep us from remembering!"

Dane would not trust himself to be with her any longer. He helped her into the elevator, and when it reached the main deck he hurried off without looking back.

The clamor in the control room was less when Dane reached it. Nile Vanz shot a squinting look at his bloody shirt and white face.

"Well?" he jerked.

Dane looked past him at Kris. He smiled reassuringly.