una. And we have three days left.
Three days."

So engrossed was he in anger that he almost blundered head-on into the
grinning red-head who lounged up the corridor toward him.

"Hey, Scott." Second Mate Max Vaugn raised a lazy eyebrow. "Slow down.
Think of all your ulcers."

Scott spun impatiently on his heel. "Can't stop, Max. Got to see the
Captain."

"And you don't even stop to say hello to an old friend back from the
mines of a nameless asteroid." He grinned, slapped Scott's shoulder
lightly with an open palm. "What's all this scandal I hear about your
space cats?"

Scott grimaced. "I caught a few while we were scooping up ore over at my
pit. Thought the Extra-Terrestrial Life Division back on Earth might be
interested in them. They don't eat. They don't breathe.... Only their
cage got smashed open, and they got into the engine room. Nobody knows
how."

"The good news has got around," Max said grinning. "You don't know it,
but there's twenty more sitting outside the main cargo hatch right now.
What gets rid of them?"

"If you think of anything," Scott said as he turned away, "tell me. Got
to go. Elderburg's waiting."

"Have you tried hitting them with strong light?" Max shouted after him.

"No," Scott shouted back. He was very late, and the Old Man wanted you
fast when he wanted you. "Try light if you get a chance."

He broke into an effortless trot, his boots padding lightly on the
shining gray floor. "Three days," he thought. He forgot Max. He forgot
Durval and the cats. He thought, "Three days," and a fine film of
perspiration spread cold across his back.

* * * * *

"We have three days," Captain Elderburg said. He was a small neat man
with a prim voice. His bland eyes peered forward into some middle
distance, ignoring Scott.

And Scott, sitting tautly in his chair, felt glad those eyes were not on
him.

"In three days," the Captain said, "or probably before, the _Kastil_
should find us. The _Kastil_--the best ship Inner-Planet Metals ever
commissioned."

Scott nodded. In the savage, free-for-all world of the space-miner, the
_Kastil_ was known as the big ship, the new ship. The ship that could
load its cargo hatches in a day, stuffing 100,000 tons of ore down in
its belly for the hungering plants of Earth.

"I've fought IP Metals for fifteen years," Elderburg said slowly. His
eyes were very far away. "For fifteen years they've grown bigger and
bigger, and th