Hell's Gate

is.”
        “But-”
        “If you will help us with your pellet gun,” Moog said, grinning even wider so that it seemed his head would split open, “I think we will solve several problems simultaneously. We will be rid of the vacii at last and free to raise all the newborn children in an enlightened atmosphere, in a society where they will not have to hide by day and move at night only with fear. And you will get a chance to return to the woman you call Lynda. That should be enough for you. And perhaps we will even destroy the vacii installations across all the probability lines.”
        The others looked anxious, as if, despite the language barrier, they knew what Moog was saying.
        “But,” the hairy man finished, “you must understand that you will not have a promise of return to your probability. Only a chance. A chance and nothing more.”
        “That's a hundred percent more than I had an hour ago,” Salsbury said.
        Moog chuckled, slapped his arm, and translated his acceptance to the others.
        There was a brief but enthusiastic cheer.

CHAPTER 19
        
        Moog's war party moved with astonishing cat-like grace and silence, considering the size of it and the size of each member. There were thirty-one in the party aside from Salsbury, all the men their settlement contained. Those left behind were women and children; even some of them had been anxious to go along, to fight the hated enemy. The decision had been to go for broke, to seize all or nothing. It was thought all men were needed (though a slaughter of them by the vacii would mean a virtual end to the colony), but that women, untrained for combat, would only get in the way.
        Once, they met a party of vacii still searching the compound, walking the alleyways with electric torches. The war party was quicker, for it was expecting trouble. The arrows were swift and silent. Six dead vacii without one managing a scream was a testimony to the accuracy of the archers.
        They went on to the starship.
        That portion of the great hull which, Moog assured him, was on the outside of the ship's armory, was pressed close against the white walls of a building, hidden in welcoming shadows. The war party stationed itself along the walls, taking advantage of the pitch darkness, while Moog and Salsbury walked along the hull to the place the hairy one chose as the most advantageous for forced entry.
        “There will be no one in the armory,” Moog said. “There will be an armory officer stationed just outside it, in the antiroom. But by the time he realizes we are in the ship, we will be armed and ready for a fight.”
        “I hope you're right,” Salsbury said. Moog had assured him that the hull sensors were inactive and would not go active until the ship was preparing for spaceflight. Still… he worried.
        “I most certainly am right,” Moog said, shaking his burly head. “Let's begin, eh?”
        Salsbury ran his hand along the hull, sampling the coolness of the metal. He rapped, heard only a faint booming sound. “It's thick.” He rapped again, listened. “It'll take some time. I think we better fire sideways so the metal chips will be propelled away from us. You stand behind me.”
        Moog obliged, moving softly, quietly.
        Salsbury aimed, fired the first pellet. There was a sharp pinging noise and the rattle of metal chips on the curve of the hull. He ran his fingers over the spot he had shot at. It was hot, though not hot enough to burn him. He found he had made perhaps a quarter to a half inch indentation in the alloy, rugged, with sharp edges, perhaps half a foot across. To make a hole large enough to admit these fellows, he was going to have to do much better than that. He set the pistol to machine gun status and prayed there were enough of the little droplets in the gas bottle cartridge to do the job. Then he depressed the trigger and held it down.
        The pinging grew louder, harsher. After two minutes of continuous fire, he stopped, waited until the echoing ring had ceased, then looked closely at what he had done. There was a rugged hole three feet across and four feet high. Only the center, big as a penny, had broken clear through. Resetting the pistol to a single shot basis, he began chopping away at the stubborn alloy, enlarging that penny-sized aperture.
        Ten minutes later, he had a hole big enough to crawl through. “Let's check it out,” he said to