"_Proklaty!_" ejaculated the Russian. "_Ya nye ponye_--" He adjusted a pair of heavy-lensed spectacles and stared at Henry in myopic amazement. "I haf turned on a walkie-talking!"
"Ye gods!" exclaimed an American businessman, a fat man with a florid, sweating face, blue-veined jowls and pale yellow hair that strove unsuccessfully to cover a sunburned scalp. "Here's a quiz kid! Let _him_ talk to the monster!"
"Poppycock!" snorted a lean, tweedy Englishman in his early forties. "The child is a precocious egotist. This is a serious matter! It is certainly not a time for youngsters to be heard at all--particularly when they appear to be addicted to the utterly fantastic! Extra-terrestrial, indeed! My poor, misguided child," he said to Henry, "you must face reality! This is either some manifestation of a Communist plot or--what would be worse--a perverted form of American advertising that has come close to endangering the lives of all of us! A rank publicity stunt! A hoax! A criminal _adulteration_ of propriety!"
"What's immorality got to do with it?" queried the negro, fearfully. "Ah don't care if dis kid is a Republican or a vampire. Ah's worried about dat _In-Between_ dey got upstairs!"
"Henry!" Martia, huddling close in the protective circle of his arm, was whispering to him. "I think the same as you!" She was trembling.
By this time, the Colonel, the Major, the non-coms and the air hostess, with the help of the commissary steward and the Swedish actress, had restored some semblance of order--at gunpoint. Over two dozen cowering, babbling, questioning passengers were lined up along both sides of the observation lounge. The newsman was still taking flash-photos. The staircase was deserted, because the Major stood there threatening to shoot any unauthorized persons attempting to get down to B deck. Henry wondered how many realized the gun was not loaded.
The now all important P.A. system sputtered, and all faces turned toward it in nervous anticipation. The co-pilot's voice came slowly and quietly now, but tensely. "_Everybody remain exactly where you are. The--stranger--is moving down the aisle._"
Someone in the observation lounge started to cry out in alarm--one of the women carrying a baby--but the Colonel said, "Quiet!" so vehemently that she stopped, staring at the staircase with round glassy eyes.