"Whatever it was, it wasn't the last!" Zak yelled. "Look out!"

They all tried to melt into the wall as another heavy object-a large tool box-hurtled past Tash's ear. Someone was using them for target practice.

CHAPTER 11.

Captain Hajj and the surviving crewman stared in horror down the gangway. "Comran!" they shouted after the man who had fallen. "Comran!"

But there was no answer. They couldn't even be sure he'd reached bottom.

The captain started to climb down past Dash, Zak, and Tash, but Dash stopped him. "Captain, he's gone."

"I'm not losing any more men!" Hajj snapped.

"He's already lost!" Dash shot back. "And we've got to get out of this gangway before we all end up like him. These kids are your pa.s.sengers, remember? Where's the closest hatch? Up or down?"

Captain Hajj cast one last glance down, then said, "Up. Only a dozen meters. Let's hurry."

Two more heavy chunks of metal fell from above. One missed them all, but the other clipped the captain on the shoulder, tearing his uniform and cutting a gash into his arm.

They kept climbing until they reached the hatch. Then they scrambled to get out of the shaft and into the safety of the hallway.

They made it not a moment too soon. As Tash jumped out into the hallway, something huge, big enough to fill the entire gangway, rumbled past. It sc.r.a.ped the walls as it fell. It would have taken all of them with it. The sound it made when it finally hit the bottom of the ship was like two planets colliding.

"Someone is here," Tash said darkly. "Watching us. Waiting for a chance to-"

"To kill us," Captain Hajj finished. "There's a murderer up there.

But who is it?"

"I know who," Zak interjected. He pointed a finger at the pilot.

"It's Dash Rendar."

"What?" Captain Hajj sputtered.

"What!" Tash shouted.

"What," Dash replied calmly, "are you talking about?"

"I know all about you," Zak said, still pointing at Dash accusingly. "I know you're wanted for smuggling and piracy. You're a thief. You tried to steal this ship!"

Dash laughed. "Who told you that?"

"SIM did," Zak replied. "He knew you registered under a false name so you wouldn't be detected by authorities."

Captain Hajj stepped forward, reaching for his blaster.

But Dash held his hands open, showing he wasn't planning to go for his own weapon. "There's only one problem with your theory, Zak," the pilot said. "If I'm the one who's behind all this, then who was that dropping hardware on our heads just now?"

Zak had been so focused on Rendar for the last few minutes, he hadn't thought everything through. Finally, he said, "But SIM told me you had done it."

"SIM lied," Dash insisted.

Zak scowled. "Computers don't lie. They a.n.a.lyze information and reach logical solutions to problems. It thinks you're behind this, Dash Rendar. Besides," he added, "you could have an accomplice."

"The boy's right," Captain Hajj said. "It's awfully strange that, except for my crew, you're the only adult who's stayed behind. I'd say that makes you our first suspect." The captain raised his blaster. "Hand over your weapon."

"Captain," Dash said. "If there's more trouble, you're going to need all the help you can get."

Hajj didn't say a word. He just held out his hand and tightened his grip on the trigger of his blaster. "That may be. In the meantime, I'd rather be the one with all the weapons."

Dash's eyes went cold. Zak could tell he was sizing up his compet.i.tion, wondering if he could get his blaster out and fire before Captain Hajj's weapon turned him into fried jelly.

At last, Dash pulled his weapon from its holster and put it gently into the captain's hand. "You're making the wrong decision, Captain."

"We'll see," Hajj replied. He nodded to his surviving crewman.

"Hang back. Keep an eye on him."

"Now that's settled," Captain Hajj said, "we still need a way to get to the comm room. Zak, do you think you can access SIM again?"

"No problem."

It took only a few minutes to find another pa.s.senger guide terminal, and a short while after that Zak was through the game program and talking to SIM.

"SIM, we need another way up to the comm room. Turbolifts are out.

We can't use the gangway."

COME TO THE CONTROL ROOM. GET MY SYSTEMS FUNCTIONING.

"Tell him no," the captain snapped. "Blasted computers. We'll do our own thinking."

Zak typed in a more polite response. "Thanks, but we're still headed for the comm room. Any suggestions?" SIM paused, considering.

NUMBER OF POSSIBILITIES: 1. THE COMMUNICATIONS ROOM RECEIVES ALL.

THE SENSOR INPUT FROM THE SHIPS ANTENNAE. CABLES RUN FROM THE ANTENNAE TO.

THE COMM ROOM. THESE CABLES ARE STRUG THROUGH THE SHIP IN VERY LARGE.

PIPES. IT WOULD BE POSSIBLE TO CRAWL UP THESE PIPES. THEY ALL LEAD RIGHT.

TO THE COMM ROOM. HOWEVER, THERE IS A 50 PERCENT CHANCE THAT THE PIPES.

WILL BE IMPa.s.sABLE.

"Of course!" Hajj said, slapping his forehead. "It'll be a tight squeeze, but we can make it. It's almost like a shortcut! Tell that computer it's not so bad after all."

Zak typed in the captain's comment.

THANK YOU, SIM said. AND ZAK..

"Yes?" he responded.

WATCH OUT.

Zak trotted to catch up to the others, just as Captain Hajj was saying, "I know exactly where the cable pipes run. There's a big observation deck down this hallway. One of the antennae is located nearby, so we can access the cables there."

Hajj led them into an observation deck similar to the one Tash and Zak had entered when trying to escape the ship. It was a little fancier-probably serving pa.s.sengers who paid extra for a first-cla.s.s ticket-with a carpeted floor and crystal glowpanels. But it served the same purpose.

It was wide, and one entire wall was made of transparisteel, allowing pa.s.sengers to look out on the stars, or whatever planet the Star of Empire happened to be orbiting. At the moment, it drifted through empty s.p.a.ce, and stars filled the view through the transparent wall. Nothing about the scene looked unusual to Zak, but Dash Rendar stopped.

"What's wrong?" Tash asked him.

"The stars," Dash said. "They're all wrong. I mean, our position isn't the same as when the alarms went off. We've been moving."

Zak knew that pilots used the stars for navigation, and that Dash was probably an expert, but he said anyway, "It can't be. Wouldn't we have felt something?"

Dash shook his head. "Not necessarily. On a ship this big you don't always feel motion. It's designed that way, to keep the pa.s.sengers from getting motion sickness. You ever been on an asteroid?"

Zak and Tash both nodded, and they both frowned. They had had a bad experience on an asteroid recently.

"This ship is like standing on an asteroid. It's moving, but it's so big you don't feel the motion. We're..." he tried to calculate. "I'd say we've come at least several light-years off our original course."

"Three point six light-years, to be exact," said a familiar voice.

Zak looked up to see a golden droid shuffling toward them. At first everyone tensed. Hajj and his crewman raised their blasters. But this droid wasn't charging them wildly, nor did it carry weapons. Zak recognized it as the same droid that had brought him to the computer control room. "Fourdee!"

"Indeed, sir," the droid answered. "And may I say that it's a pleasure to see familiar faces. Any faces, really. I was afraid the ship had been entirely deserted."

Captain Hajj confronted the droid. "What have you been doing since the alarms went off?"

"Wandering, sir," the droid replied. "I am a porter droid, after all, programmed to help pa.s.sengers. And there were none, so I had nothing to do." The droid's photoreceptors focused on Hajj's two blasters, the captain's own and the one he'd taken from Dash. "May I add, sir, that I have a secondary program in ship's security. If I may be of service to the ship?"

Captain Hajj grunted. "Very well. Better a droid programmed to serve the ship than a smuggler I don't even know. Here." He handed the blaster to Fourdee, then jabbed a thumb at Dash. "Keep your eyes on him."

"Yes, sir," Fourdee said.

But instead of falling in behind Dash, Fourdee immediately shuffled over to the transparisteel wall of the observation deck.

"Hey!" the captain shouted. "What are you doing?"

"Why, I am serving the ship, sir," Fourdee replied. He raised the blaster and blew a hole in the wall.

CHAPTER 12.

Zak and Tash had learned some very basic lessons about s.p.a.ce travel even before they were old enough to go to school.

One rule was: Make sure you chart a clear course from one planet to another.

The other was: Never, ever break the airtight seal on a s.p.a.ceship.

Fourdee had just broken that rule. It had blasted a hole the size of a human body in the transparisteel window. Outside the ship was the vacuum of s.p.a.ce. Inside the ship was an artificial atmosphere. The moment the seal was broken, all the air rushed out into the void, gathering itself like a storm trapped in a box. Fourdee was sucked out instantly, taking Dash's blaster with him.

Zak and Tash had been in this situation before. The minute they heard the transparisteel shatter, they dove for a table bolted into the floor. Dash Rendar and Captain Hajj were fast enough to grab hold of something, too.

The last crewman wasn't so lucky. He hesitated for a moment, and the air itself seemed to scoop him up and sweep him out the hole Fourdee had created. He was gone in the blink of an eye.

Zak and Tash felt the vacuum of s.p.a.ce tugging at them, but they held tightly to the table.

We'll be all right as long as this table holds, Zak thought.

Instantly, he regretted thinking it.

The bolts that pinned the table to the floor started to give.

The Star of Empire was a luxury ship. It wasn't designed for the kind of punishment it was suddenly taking. Furniture that had been secured to the walls or the floors was yanked from its mooring. Sections of carpet ripped up and began flying across the room like angry ghosts before they were sucked into s.p.a.ce. Whole sections of the floor were wrenched from the ship's frame. A large sheet of durasteel flooring near Zak and Tash started to peel up.

A wild idea crossed Zak's mind. An insane idea. But he thought it just might work, and if it worked, it would save their lives. He hesitated for a moment, gathering his courage.

He was just about to put his idea into action-when Dash Rendar did it instead.

The flooring was almost completely loose, clinging by a single bolt. In an act of pure courage-or foolishness-Dash let go of his handhold. Immediately, he was sucked toward the hole in the window. But as he pa.s.sed over the loose sheet of metal flooring, he grabbed it in a powerful grip. His added weight yanked it loose, and man and metal shot toward the hole.

Just as he had in the turbolift shaft, Dash kept his cool. In the split second before he was sucked out the hole, he tumbled in midair so that the sheet of flooring was leading the way. It was wider than the hole, and it slapped against the transparisteel, covering the hole.

The vacuum stopped. Dash dropped to the ground. His trick had sealed the hole as neatly as a blast door.

Hajj, Tash, and Zak got to their feet and hurried over to the man who had saved them.

"Now that," Captain Hajj said, "was impressive."

Zak expected Dash to brag, but instead, the pilot stood up unsteadily on his feet. He looked like a man who had stepped a little too close to the edge of a cliff.

"Luck," he said, a little shakily. "Pure luck. But I hope now you know I'm not the one trying to kill us."