atness. His dark hair, thinning at
the temples, was clipped short and brushed straight back. There were
smile wrinkles at the corners of his blue eyes and grooving his lean
cheeks.

He closed the cabin doors and pulled himself forward to enter the
control room through the partly open hatch. The forward bulkhead
offered no more head room than did his own cabin, but there seemed to
be more breathing space because this chamber was not quartered. Deck
space, however, was at such a premium because of the controls,
acceleration couches, and astrogating equipment that the hatch was the
largest clear area.

Two men and a girl turned startled eyes upon Tremont as he rose into
their view. One of the men, about forty-five but sporting a youngish
manner to match his blond crewcut and tanned features, glanced quickly
at his wrist watch.

"Am I too early?" demanded Tremont with sudden coldness. "What are you
doing with my case there?"

The girl, in her early twenties and carefully pretty with her long
black hair neatly netted for space, snatched back a small hand from
the steel strongbox that was shaped to fit into an attache case. The
second man, under thirty but thick-waisted in a gray tee-shirt, said
in the next breath, "Take him!"

Too late, Tremont saw that the speaker had already braced a foot
against the far bulkhead. Then the broad face with its crooked blob of
a nose above a ridiculous little mustache shot across the chamber at
him. Desperately, Tremont groped for a hold that would help him either
to avoid the charge or to pull himself back into the shaft, but he was
caught half in and half out.

He met the rush with a fist, but the tangle of bodies immediately
became confusing beyond belief as the other pair joined in.

Something cracked across the back of his head, much too hard to have
been accidental.

When Tremont began to function again, it took him only a few seconds
to realize that life had been going on without him for some little
time.

For one thing, the heavy man's nosebleed had stopped, and he was
tenderly combing blood from his mustache with a fingertip.

For another, they had managed to stuff Tremont into a spacesuit and
haul him down the shaft to the air lock. Someone had noosed the thumbs
of the gauntlets together and tied the cord to the harness supporting
the air tanks.

Tremont twisted his head around to eye the three of them without
speaking. He was trying to decide where he had made his