s at eye-aching angles. A
spaceman could take this--knowing it wasn't real--but a tyro could not.

Copper collapsed. Her mind, assaulted by sensations no untrained person
should experience, went into shock. But she wasn't granted the mercy
of unconsciousness. Terrified by a pseudo reality that surpassed her
wildest nightmares, she stared wide-eyed at the control room and the
thing that had been Kennon. She screamed until her throat was raw,
until the monster beside her touched her with Kennon's hands. Then,
mercifully, she felt a stinging in her arm and all sensation ceased.

Kennon stared glumly at the controls. Fleming alone knew how many
objective years were passing outside as they hurtled through four-space.
Subjectively it would only be hours aboard the Egg, but a decade--or
maybe a century--might pass outside this mad universe where neither time
nor speed had meaning. The old ships didn't have temporal compensators,
nor could they travel through upper bands of Cth where subjective
and objective time were more nearly equal. They were trapped in
a semi-stasis of time as the ship fled on through the distorted
monochromatic regions that bypassed normal space.

The Egg slipped smoothly out of the hyper jump, back into the normal
universe. Beta floated above them, the blue shield of her atmosphere
shining softly in the light of Beta's sun.

"Couldn't hit it that good again in a hundred tries," Kennon gloated.
"Halfway across the galaxy--and right on the nose." He looked at the
shock chair beside him. Copper was curled into a tight ball inside the
confining safety web, knees drawn up, back bent, head down--arms wrapped
protectingly around her legs--the fetal position of catatonic shock.

He shook her shoulder--no response. Her pulse was thready and irregular.
Her breathing was shallow. Her lips were blue. Her condition was
obvious--space shock--extreme grade. She'd need medical attention if she
was going to live. And she'd need it fast!

"Just why, you educated nitwit," he snarled at himself, "didn't you have
sense enough to give her that injection of Sonmol before we hypered! You
haven't the sense of a decerebrate Capellan grackle!"

He turned on the radio. "Emergency!" he said. "Any station! Space-shock
case aboard. Extreme urgency."

"Identify yourself--give your license. Over."

"What port are you?"

"Hunterstown--will you please identify? Over."

"Your co-ordinates," Kennon snapped. "Over."

"280.45--6