could not make the last effort, raise his almost inert bulk up to the
point where he could reach the Redax release. For a second of unusual
clarity he wondered if there was any reason for this supreme ordeal,
whether any of the sleepers could be aroused. This might now be a ship
of the dead.

His right hand, his arm, and finally his bulk over the seat, he braced
himself and brought his left hand up. He could not use any of the
fingers; it was like lifting numb, heavy weights. But he lurched
forward, swept the unfeeling lump of cold flesh down against the release
in a gesture which he knew must be his final move. And, as he fell back
to the floor, Dr. Ruthven could not be certain whether he had succeeded
or failed. He tried to screw his head around, to focus his eyes upward
at that switch. Was it down or still stubbornly up, locking the sleepers
into confinement? But there was a fog between; he could not see it--or
anything.

The light in the cabin flickered, was gone as another circuit in the
broken ship failed. It was dark, too, in the small cubby below which
housed the two cages. Chance, which had snuffed out nineteen lives in
the space globe, had missed ripping open that cabin on the mountain
side. Five yards down the corridor the outside fabric of the ship was
split wide open, the crisp air native to Topaz entering, sending a
message to two keen noses through the combination of odors now pervading
the wreckage.

And the male coyote went into action. Days ago he had managed to work
loose the lower end of the mesh which fronted his cage, but his mind had
told him that a sortie inside the ship was valueless. The odd rapport
he'd had with the human brains, unknown to them, had operated to keep
him to the old role of cunning deception, which in the past had saved
countless of his species from sudden and violent death. Now with teeth
and paws he went diligently to work, urged on by the whines of his mate,
that tantalizing smell of an outside world tickling their nostrils--a
wild world, lacking the taint of man-places.

He slipped under the loosened mesh and stood up to paw at the front of
the female's cage. One forepaw caught in the latch and pressed it down,
and the weight of the door swung against him. Together they were free
now to reach the corridor and see ahead the subdued light of a strange
moon beckoning them on into the open.

The female, always more cautious than her mate, lingered behind as he
trotted fo