s now, his heart was
pumping madly, but he forced himself on. His eyes strained toward the
compartment where the emergency space-suit was neatly compacted. Thank
God. It was still there. The inmate had evidently rushed out at the
first alarm to join the terror-maddened crush.

Pemberton worked with feverish haste. Somehow he thrust the
unconscious girl into the suit, tightened the helmet into position,
opened the valve that started the steady measured flow of life-giving
oxygen. Then, with dark spots dancing before his eyes, he deposited
her gently on the floor, and managed to force himself in the now
almost total darkness toward another room.

* * * * *

His swelling hands fumbled. The compartment was empty. Despairing,
conscious only of a desire to lie down, to rest, he tried another. It,
too, was empty. He stumbled over sprawled bodies, fell, managed to get
up again. Again he fumbled into a compartment. The clammy feel of the
creatoid never was more welcome. His breath was coming in whistling
gasps. It seemed ages of strangulation before the first cool rush of
oxygen expanded his tortured lungs. For a full minute he stood there,
inhaling deep draughts. Then once more he was himself, his brain
functioning with keen clarity.

He must find the Ganymedans and come to grips with them. There was no
doubt in his mind that somehow they had been responsible for the
cataclysm. Just how, he did not know, but he would find out.

But the girl. He could not leave her. Duty and something else stirred
into conflict. He hesitated. In the flap of the suit was an emergency
flash. Throwing the beam on the walls and flooring, he managed to
retrace his steps to the cabin where he had left her. As he flashed it
inside, his heart gave a great bound. She was standing now.

"Feel all right?" he spoke into the tiny transmitter that was part of
the regulation equipment.

"Fine." Her warm, rich voice spoke in his ear. "But I'm not thinking
of myself. Are the others on board safe? What happened?"

"I'm afraid we are the only ones alive," he told her gravely. "As to
what happened, I can only guess. We seem to have hit an unusually
heavy meteor shower that riddled us through and through, though--" He
paused.

"Though what?"

He ignored her question. "The first thing we've got to do is find out
where we are." His flash sought the window switch and found it. He
went over and pressed it. A section of the ber