was
nothing to breathe but death. The mind that had made him sing, that had
thought of Circe longingly and of what he must do to save her and all
his friends, that blacked out, fell into a pit of ebony walls and ink at
the bottom, blackness and nothing left anywhere....

* * * * *

Somewhere deep in his skull, some unknown cranny blazed with the light
of knowledge. He had only a few yards to go. He had to make it. This
knowledge crept out and through his body, raised cold swollen hands and
made them grasp at a wall, forced the feet of this dead man to scrabble
for purchase on the floor of the passage. Pinkham knew that he was
moving, but it was as if he were sitting on a distant planet and knowing
it; there was no realization that this was he, Captain Pinkham, clawing
upward and shoving himself on. He looked at himself curiously, rather
proud and a little contemptuous. What a fool, what a damn fool, he
thought.

Here was a door. The half-blind thing that was Pink groped for the
handle, recognizing dimly that if this were not the atmospheria, then it
was all over.

He opened the door and fell at full length on the carpet. Instinct
rolled him over and hauled him to his knees, and he said admiringly and
far away on that planet of death, By God, this is a man! Through a red
haze he saw that he was in the first of the two small rooms that made
up the atmospheria. He lunged forward, falling, jerked convulsively
upward, plunged down a mile and smashed his face into the carpet, felt
pain that for a moment brought him out of his stupor. He was making for
the master switch that controlled the nitrogen-oxygen-ozone-etcetra that
poured continuously through the great ship when all was well. From a
great distance he could see that the switch was shoved up; only by
breaking a steel band of superb tensility could the alien creature have
pushed that switch up, for Pink carried the key to the band on his
master ring, hanging at his belt. It looked like viciousness, either of
knowledge that this was the humans' finish, or of ignorance flaring into
anger. What a _beast_....

He gathered himself like a mortally wounded lion. He launched his
perishing frame at the switch, hands clawed to drag it down to the
normal position.

He could not feel whether he even touched the wall, for his senses were
obliterated. He lay on his face and knew that he would not get up again.

Idly, he wondered whether he had