"My God—"
Halliday's voice broke and Ward saw that his eyes were staring in horror beyond him, to the still open door where the gray swirling fury of the monsoon was creeping in.
And other things were in the open doorway!
Ward knew that without turning to look. The horror mirrored in Halliday’s face told him that more plainly than could his own eyes.
There was horror and fear in Halliday's face, but the tightness of his lips did not relax into the flaccid looseness of hysteria.
With superhuman control he was keeping a grip on himself.
"Don't move!" he snapped, through set jaws. "I'll try to get at the rifle."
Ward's heart was thundering a tattoo of terror. Halliday's words made no impression on the horror-stunned brain. He lunged wildly across the room, dimly he heard Halliday's sudden shouted warning.
Without a backward glance he lurched into the small room that served as a kitchen. Through the fog of terror that swirled about his mind, he remembered only one thing: Halliday's remark of a refuge built there for emergency purposes.
His fingers tore open the small door alongside the refrigerator unit. A black passage stretched ahead of him and he plunged into dark shelter, jerking the door shut after him.
A light snapped on when the door closed and he saw that he was in a small, stoutly reinforced storeroom, with bales of supplies and equipment packed against the walls.
He threw the heavy bolt that locked the door and sagged against a wall, his breath coming in deep shuddering gasps. There was no sound from outside. Gradually his labored breathing subsided and he stared with dull, unseeing eyes ahead of him.
And in that moment Ward Harrison came face-to-face with what he had done. In a single gleaming flash of understanding, he realized that he had bought his life with his honor.
A shuddering sob passed through his body.
He remembered with scalding self-hatred the things he had said to Halliday—a man who had endured the horror of this isolated base for three years. He had called a man cowardly who had more courage in his smallest finger than Ward had in his entire body.
Halliday had stuck here, doing his job, making no complaints or excuses, always aware of the horrible, soul-numbing danger he was facing.
Ward cursed and buried his face in his trembling hands. With bitter shame he recalled his jeering remarks to Halliday about his nervous habit of removing his glasses.
God! Three years on this hellish base and the only sign a nervous habit of fiddling with his glasses. Stark raving madness would have been the effect on any other person Ward could imagine.
At that instant he despised himself more than he had ever despised any human being in his life.
And he knew that the worst punishment that would ever be meted to him, would be the mere act of living and being able to think—to remember.
With feverish eyes he glared about the room. A small leaden cask was set apart from the other equipment and it was marked with three xxx's, the indication of high explosive contents.
Ward dropped to his knees and pried open the lid of the small cask. It was filled with neat rows of U-235 pellets,
