nd then flicker
out, light up again, flare for an instant, then die down. Someone was
alive within the ship.

They got the hatch open. In the central section of the living sphere,
the lights were also dim and in a few places they were completely out.
They emerged and closed the hatch behind them. Only after Haines had
tested the inner atmosphere and found it still pressurized, did they
open their helmets and climb stiffly out of the space suits, wincing at
bruises they had sustained but had not noticed until then.

The air pressure was all right, but there was a smell of burned rubber
and insulation in the air. Now that their helmets were off, they could
hear voices somewhere above. They found Oberfield lying unconscious,
thrown to the floor by the sudden shift of the ship. They climbed into
the control room. Lockhart was floating in the air near the open
hatchway leading to the engine room overhead. He was calling out orders
to someone who was within.

Russ was working over the navigation desk, a bandage around his head,
trying to figure out where they would be and where they were heading,
without having access to the still dark viewplates.

Lockhart twisted in the weightless air when he saw them. He seemed both
relieved and distressed. "I'm glad you're okay, but I had hoped you'd be
able to put in a blow for us."

Burl realized that inside the ship they had no way of knowing that
vengeance had been served. Hastily, he explained. His words cheered
everyone. Russ and Lockhart shouted joyously. Detmar poked his head down
the hatch and called the news back to his two fellows who were
struggling to get the A-G generators functioning.

The bolt of energy, whatever it may have been designed to do to a ship
of the Sun-tapper build, did not have the totally disastrous effect on
the _Magellan_ that it was intended to have. It had knocked out their
electrical system temporarily, burned out some of its parts and caused
the A-G system to fail, although the atomic piles were impervious to
such currents. Oberfield, Ferrati and Shea were badly hurt.

There now followed an anxious period during which more and more of the
electrical system began to function as the men labored to rig up
emergency wires, and to replace burned out bulbs and lines. There was a
general cheer when the viewplates flickered into life again, though not
all functioned. They again had access to the sky about them--even though
not all sectors were covered.