u talked, one of your eight
doctorates is in medicine."

"Of course."

"Are you any good at obstetrics?"

"In the present instance I am perfectly safe in saying----"

"Wait a minute!" Deston snapped. "Bobby, you are _not_----"

"I am too! That is, I don't suppose I _am_ yet, since we were married
only last Tuesday, but if he's competent--and I'm _sure_ he is--I'm
certainly _going_ to! If we get back to Earth I _want_ to, and if we
don't, both Bun and I have _got_ to. Castaways' Code, you know. So how
about it, Uncle Andy?"

"I know what you two girls are," Adams said, quietly. "I know what you
two men must of necessity be. Therefore I can say without reservation
that none of you need feel any apprehension whatever."

Deston was about to say something, but Barbara forestalled him. "Well,
we can _think_ about it, anyway, and talk it over. But for right now, I
think it's high time we all got some sleep. Don't you?"

* * * * *

It was; and they did; and after they had slept and had eaten "breakfast"
the three men wafted themselves across a couple of hundred yards of
space to the crippled starship. Powerful floodlights were rigged.

"What ... a ... mess." Deston's voice was low and wondering. "The whole
Top looks as though she'd crash-landed and spun out for eight miles. But
the Middle and Tail look untouched."

Inside, however, devastation had gone deep into the Middle. Bulkheads,
walls, floors, structural members; were torn, sheared, twisted into
weirdly-distorted shapes impossible to understand or explain. And, much
worse, were the _absences_; for in dozens of volumes, of as many sizes
and of shapes incompatible with any three-dimensional geometry, every
solid thing had vanished--without leaving any clue whatever as to where
or how it had gone.

[Illustration]

After three long days of hard work, Adams was satisfied. He had taken
pictures as fast as both officers could process the film; he had covered
many miles of tape with words only half of which either spaceman could
understand. Then, finally, he said:

"Well, that covers the preliminary observations as well as I know how to
do it. Thank you, boys, for your forbearance and your help. Now, if
you'll help me find my stuff and bring some of it--a computer and so
on--up to the lounge?" They did so; the "and so on" proving to be a
bewildering miscellany indeed. "Thank you immensely, gentlemen; now I
won't bother you any more