n in a dream, MacMaine went on to Hokotan's cabin, his weapon
at the ready. He was rather pleased to find that the HQ general was
already quite dead, his neck broken as cleanly as if it had been done
by a hangman. Hardly an hour before, MacMaine would cheerfully have
shot Hokotan where it would hurt the most and watch him die slowly. But
the memory of Hokotan's honest apology made the Earthman very glad that
he did not have to shoot the general at all.

There remained only the five-man crew, the NCO technician and his gang,
who actually ran the ship. They would be at the tail of the ship, in
the engine compartment. To get there, he had to cross the center of
spin of the ship, and the change of gravity from one direction to
another, decreasing toward zero, passing the null point, and rising
again on the other side, made him nauseous. He felt better after his
stomach had emptied itself.

Cautiously, he opened the door to the drive compartment and then
slammed it hard in sudden fear when he saw what had happened. The
shielding had been torn away from one of the energy converters and
exposed the room to high-energy radiation. The crewmen were quite dead.

The fear went away as quickly as it had come. So maybe he'd dosed
himself with a few hundred Roentgens--so what? A little radiation never
hurt a dead man.

But he knew now that there was no possibility of escape. The drive was
wrecked, and the only other means of escape, the one-man courier boat
that every blaster-boat carried, had been sent out weeks ago and had
never returned.

If only the courier boat were still in its cradle--

MacMaine shook his head. No. It was better this way. Much better.

He turned and went back to the dining cabin where Tallis was trussed
up. This time, passing the null-gee point didn't bother him much at
all.

* * * * *

Tallis was moaning a little and his eyelids were fluttering by the time
MacMaine got back. The Earthman opened the medical kit again and looked
for some kind of stimulant. He had no knowledge of medical or chemical
terms in Kerothic, but there was a box of glass ampoules bearing
instructions to "crush and allow patient to inhale fumes." That sounded
right.

The stuff smelled like a mixture of spirits of ammonia and butyl
mercaptan, but it did the job. Tallis coughed convulsively, turned his
head away, coughed again, and opened his eyes. MacMaine tossed the
stinking ampoule ou