Four-Day Planet by H. Beam Piper

Before we left the lighted elevator car, we took a quick nose count. Besides the Kivelsons, there were five _Javelin_ men -- Ramon Llewellyn, Abdullah Monnahan, Abe Clifford, Cesario Vieira, and a whitebeard named Piet Dumont. Al Devis had been with us when we crashed the door out of the meeting room, but he'd fallen by the way. We had a couple of flashlights, so, after sending the car down to Bottom Level, we picked our way up the zigzag iron stairs to the catwalk, under the seventy-foot ceiling, and sat down in the dark.

Joe Kivelson was fretting about what would happen to the rest of his men.