*

Tallis first. MacMaine made his way over to one of the emergency
medical kits that he knew were kept in every compartment of every ship.
One of the doors of a wall locker hung open, and the blue-green medical
symbol used by the Kerothi showed darkly in the dim light that came
from the three unshattered glow plates in the ceiling. He opened the
kit, hoping that it contained something equivalent to adhesive tape. He
had never inspected a Kerothi medical kit before. Fortunately, he could
read Kerothi. If a military government was good for nothing else, at
least it was capable of enforcing a simplified phonetic orthography so
that words were pronounced as they were spelled. And--

He forced his wandering mind back to his work. The blow on the head,
plus the crazy effect the spinning was having on his inner ears, plus
the cockeyed gravitational orientation that made his eyes feel as
though they were seeing things at two different angles, all combined to
make for more than a little mental confusion.

There was adhesive tape, all right. Wound on its little spool, it
looked almost homey. He spent several minutes winding the sticky
plastic ribbon around Tallis' wrists and ankles.

Then he took the gun from the Kerothi general's sleeve holster--he had
never been allowed one of his own--and, holding it firmly in his right
hand, he went on a tour of the ship.

It was hard to move around. The centrifugal force varied from point to
point throughout the ship, and the corridors were cluttered with debris
that seemed to move with a life of its own as each piece shifted slowly
under the effects of the various forces working on it. And, as the
various masses moved about, the rate of spin of the ship changed as the
law of conservation of angular momentum operated. The ship was full of
sliding, clattering, jangling noises as the stuff tried to find a final
resting place and bring the ship to equilibrium.

He found the door to Ossif's cabin open and the room empty. He found
Ossif in Loopat's cabin, trying to get the younger officer to his feet.

Ossif saw MacMaine at the door and said: "You're alive! Good! Help
me----" Then he saw the gun in MacMaine's hand and stopped. It was the
last thing he saw before MacMaine shot him neatly between the eyes.

Loopat, only half conscious, never even knew he was in danger, and the
blast that drilled through his brain prevented him from ever knowing
anything again in this life.

Like a ma