after that, things happened almost too fast for steve to follow. kevin got the idea at once, charging at leclarc before the frenchman had time to gather his wits. the neutron gun hissed violently, searing a three-inch chunk out of the ceiling. but then leclarc was struck by two hundred pounds of kevin mcgann, and went down before the onslaught.
something exploded against steve's jaw and he did a quick flip and landed on his back. he'd hardly had time to declare himself in the battle, when one of barling's men had jumped him. now the man came down atop him, flailing with both fists, but steve chopped at his face with short, clubbing blows and scrambled to his feet while the man caught his breath.
steve didn't wait, plunging toward the man with murder in his eyes—and failed to reach him. an arm circled his neck from behind and he was dragged to the floor again, by the second of the three anthrovac hunters. he rolled over, saw kevin and leclarc off to his right, standing toe-to-toe and slugging. and beyond them, teejay was cuffing barling around the lounge with lusty, man-sized blows. barling went down under the onslaught, falling at the woman's feet, but then the third hunter had grasped her swirling black cape from behind, throwing it over her head and tripping her. she fought blindly as she went down, taking the hunter with her; and with barling, they became a tangled melee of thrashing arms and legs.
steve rolled out from under the second hunter, but the first one met him halfway and pole-axed him down to the floor again with a hard right hand. sobbing, clutching at the man's legs, steve began to pull himself upright and got a knee in his face. he went down again, and this time everything in the room receded into a vague, shadowy fog.
when steve could see again, there was still no order to the chaos. he hadn't lived a violent life like kevin or teejay—such things were not part of his background, although he'd boxed in college and won the light-heavyweight championship, too. but there was something different, something elemental about a free-for-all brawl.
leclarc lay on his back, supine. he looked out of it for the duration, which still set the odds at four to three against the trio from the gordak. right now kevin held his own with the two hunters who'd done steve in, at least temporarily. but that couldn't last, for both were big, muscular men. and teejay? she was a woman, so perhaps the odds were even worse. steve smiled grimly as he clambered to his feet to help kevin. teejay was a woman, but she was the new twenty-second century woman, and proud of it. the third hunter kicked and thrashed helplessly on the floor as she held him in a head-scissors and at the same time fended off barling who was crawling around them and looking for an opening. teejay, definitely, was an asset.
steve got to hunter number three quickly, pulling him off kevin and straightening him with an uppercut. after that, it was a set-up. steve pounded once and then again with his left hand at the man's midsection, then finished by crossing his right and feeling it crunch against the man's jaw.
"now i see how you could take care of leclarc that first day!" kevin yelled, and promptly polished off the other hunter with a blow that lifted him completely off the floor.
as one, they whirled around to face the other side of the room. barling and his henchman had finally got the upper hand. teejay lay on her side, her hands behind her back. not unconscious, she was completely spent, and an almost equally exhausted barling was attempting to tie her hands with the black cape. the hunter sat there, dull-eyed, watching them. it was kevin who lifted the hunter and hurled him away, and when steve rolled barling over and pushed him against the wall, the man did not resist.
teejay climbed to her feet, unsteadily. "i—guess i'm growing—soft," she panted. "maybe—i don't know—maybe training and muscle-toning from—infancy—aren't the answer. a gal just isn't cut out for rough and tumble fighting." her hand flashed up to her forehead, the back of it resting against her brow. "ooo, steve, catch me—"
she fainted in his arms.
somehow, they got teejay into her vac-suit. the walls of the lounge were sound-proofed, and the struggle had attracted no one. silently they made their way out of the lounge and through the corridors of the frank buck, heading for the airlock. steve toted teejay over his shoulder, and remembering mercury, felt very good about it. he ached all over from the fight and he knew he'd need some mending. but she'd called him steve, and that—suddenly and ridiculously—was most important.
"what's going on here?" a crewman met them in the corridor and bellowed his challenge.
kevin raised the neutron gun he had taken from leclarc.
he never used it.
a fraction of a second later, the frank buck blasted off from the surface of ganymede, and sudden acceleration threw them all to the floor. as steve was to learn later, no hands were at the controls. no human hands.
