if I can help it, he won't," shouted Ackerman Boone. "Listen, men.
This ain't a question of discipline. It's a question of living or dying
and I tell you that's more important than doing it like the book says or
discipline or anything like that. We got a chance, all right: but it
ain't what the Admiral thinks it is. We ought to abandon the _Glory_ to
her place in the sun and scram out of here in the lifeboats--every last
person aboard ship."

"But will they have enough power to get out of the sun's gravitational
pull?" someone asked.

Ackerman Boone shrugged. "Don't look at me," he said mockingly. "I'm
only an enlisted man and they don't give enlisted men enough math to
answer questions like that. But reckoning by the seat of my pants I
would say, yes. Yes, we could get away like that--if we act fast.
Because every minute we waste is a minute that brings us closer to the
sun and makes it harder to get away in the lifeboats. If we act, men, we
got to act fast."

"You're talking mutiny, Boone," a grizzled old space veteran said. "You
can count me out."

"What's the matter, McCormick? Yellow?"

"I'm not yellow. I say it takes guts to maintain discipline in a real
emergency. I say _you're_ yellow, Boone."

"You better be ready to back that up with your fists, McCormick," Boone
said savagely.

"I'm ready any time you're ready, you yellow mutinous bastard!"

* * * * *

Ackerman Boone launched himself at the smaller, older man, who stood his
ground unflinchingly although he probably knew he would take a sound
beating. But four or five crewmen came between them and held them apart,
one saying:

"Look who's talking, Boone. You say time's precious but you're all set
to start fighting. Every minute--"

"Every _second_," Boone said grimly, "brings us more than a hundred
miles closer to the sun."

"What can we do, Acky?"

Instead of answer, Ackerman Boone dramatically mopped the sweat from his
face. All the men were uncomfortably warm now. It was obvious that the
temperature within the _Glory of the Galaxy_ had now climbed fifteen or
twenty degrees despite the fact that the refrigs were working at full
capacity. Even the bulkheads and the metal floor of crew quarters were
unpleasantly warm to the touch. The air was hot and suddenly very dry.

"I'll tell you what we ought to do," Ackerman Boone said finally.
"Admiral Stapleton or no Admiral Stapleton, President of the Galactic
Federat