e fusion must have
shorted the neutralizers. They would make a mess; it must have burned a
hole down into number six tube. Cleveland and I will come down, and
we'll all look around."

Donning space-suits, the scientists let themselves into the damaged
compartment through the emergency air-locks, and what a sight they saw!
Both outer and inner walls of alloy armor had been blown away by the
awful force of the explosion. Jagged plates hung awry; bent, twisted,
and broken. The great torpedo tube, with all its intricate automatic
machinery, had been driven violently backward and lay piled in hideous
confusion against the backing bulkheads. Practically nothing remained
whole in the entire compartment.

"Nothing much we can do here," Rodebush said finally, through his
transmitter, "Let's go see what number four generator room looks like."

That room, although not affected by the explosion from without, had been
quite as effectively wrecked from within. It was still stiflingly hot;
its air was still reeking with the stench of burning lubricant,
insulation, and metal; its floor was half covered by a semi-molten mass
of what had once been vital machinery. For with the burning out of the
generator bars the energy of the disintegrating allotropic iron had had
no outlet, and had built up until it had broken through its insulation
and in an irresistible flood of power had torn through all obstacles in
its path of neutralization.

"Hm-m-m. Should have had an automatic shut-off--one detail we
overlooked," Rodebush mused. "The electricians _can_ rebuild this stuff
here, though--that hole in the hull is something else again."

"I'll say it's something else," the grizzled Chief Engineer agreed.
"She's lost all her spherical strength--anchoring a tractor with this
ship now would turn her inside out. Back to the nearest Triplanetary
shop for us, I would say."

"Come again, Chief!" Cleveland advised the engineer. "None of us would
live long enough to get there. We can't travel inertialess until the
repairs are made, so if they can't be made without very much traveling,
it's just too bad."

"I don't see how we could support our jacks...." The engineer paused,
then went on. "If you can't give me Mars or Tellus, how about some other
planet? I don't care about atmosphere, or about anything but mass. I can
stiffen her up in three or four days if I can sit down on something
heavy enough to hold our jacks and presses; but if we have to rig