"I been listening to it get louder for the past three hours," Altman hinted.

Then Brad's ears picked it up--an erratic, excited _clackety-clack-clackety-clack_. He gasped.

Altman laughed. "That counter's setting up quite a sing-song, ain't it?

I sorta think that pile might go _boom_ in a few hours. But I'm hoping I can get your cargo aboard before then. You can come too if you want."

Brad swung swiftly and lurched for the pa.s.sageway aft.

"Wish I was there to help you with the cad rod insertions," the laughing voice raced after him.

The dial on the forward side of the shielded bulkhead read Oh-Oh-point-Oh-Two-Four. He applied the figure to the adjacent graph and learned he could remain in the engine compartment for one minute and fourteen seconds, with a safety factor of ten per cent. In that period of time, he rationalized, he ought to be able to insert a sufficient number of cadmium control rods to bring the pile under control.

The counter clicked gratingly overhead as he undogged the hatch, swung it open and lunged into the steam-tormented acrid compartment.

He broke open the first locker and jerked the remaining three cad rods from their racks. Coughing and waving smoke from in front of his face, he swung open the door of the first reserve compartment.

It was empty!

The second reserve compartment was empty too, as were the two emergency compartments. Only three cadmium rods when he needed at least three dozen!

In a rapid dash around the pile block, he inserted the rods at s.p.a.ced intervals in their slots. At least they would mean a few hours' grace.

As he slid the last rod in he cursed himself and swore that if he ever commanded another ship he would not leave it unmanned at the dock--specifically if there was somebody like Altman berthed anywhere at the same s.p.a.ceport.

The ruptured hypertube jacket, he wondered suddenly, not losing his count of seconds. It seemed unlikely now that it had let go as a result of defective material. He stepped to the f.l.a.n.g.e that connected it with the stern bulkhead.

The tube, inactivated immediately after the blowout, was cold. He looked where his suspicions directed.... The aperture control valve had been readjusted! It had been displaced a full fifteen degrees on the topside of optimum power! A cunning setting--one that would trap and concentrate enough residual di-ions at normal power output to cut loose somewhere between the fifth and tenth jump.

He thought, too, of his transmitter that hadn't been powerful enough to reach farther than a couple of jumps since he had left s.p.a.ceport. When, he asked himself, had Altman's radioman worked on it?

After he slammed the hatch and dogged it, he leaned against the thick metal for a long while. The _clack-clack_ overhead was somewhat pacified. But it wouldn't remain that way long. He quelled the fear sensations that were racing through him and tried to think.

How long? How long had it been since Jim left? He was three jumps away a few hours ago--or was it longer than that?--and he still had seven to go or was it six? Had it been just a few hours ago, or was it days? He had slept some--twice, he believed--since then. But for how long? And if the tow ships did make it back in time, would they have spare rods?

He gave it up as a hopeless speculation and started back up the pa.s.sageway, shoulders drooping.

_Karoom!_

The new sound reverberated through the agonized vessel and the bulkheads of the pa.s.sageway shuddered in fanatic sympathy with it.

The deck shifted crazily beneath his feet and a port beam--the bulkhead and the rest of the ship following it--swung over to crash into his shoulder.

A stabbing pain shot up his arm as he slid down the tilting wall and landed in the right angle between the deck and the bulkhead.

Ma.s.saging the torn ligament in his arm, he sat up and swayed dizzily in resonance with the pendulum-like motion of the vessel. Then he struggled to his feet and stood upright--one foot planted at an angle against the deck and the other against the port bulkhead. Overhead was the corresponding juncture made by the ceiling plate and the starboard bulkhead.

Nausea welled as he tried to adjust to the new, perverted up and down references. He didn't have to wonder what had happened. The starboard gray coil that ran under the overheated converter, he knew, had finally shorted out. The port coil was still operating normally. He considered turning it off, but conceded it was better to struggle around in an apparently listing ship than to be wracked by the nausea of weightlessness.

Straddling the deck and port bulkhead, he waddled back to the hatchway, threw a leg over its edge and lifted himself into the control compartment, sliding down the floor to the port side. He worked his way to the control seat, readjusted its tilt and crawled in it.

Then he tore a strip out of his jacket and wrapped it around his shoulder as tightly as he could. The pressure eased the pain in his aching muscle.

The air gauge showed an almost normal Two-Nine-point-Three-Two pounds, sufficient oxygen content, and a satisfactory circulatory rate. He eagerly fished a cigarette from his jacket. He had earned it, he a.s.sured himself.

While he smoked he counted on the screen the amount of cargo that had spilled out when the loose crates had lurched with the vessel. Almost as fast as he counted it, the Cl.u.s.ter Queen swooped down on it and scooped it into her hatch.

Numbed, he found he could no longer react to the total disregard of his rights with any degree of excited resentment. He closed his eyes indifferently. Shuddering, he squeezed the cylinder of tobacco between his fingers without being aware of the action. The glowing end bent back and burned his knuckle.

Tossing the cigarette away, he realized suddenly his fight was futile.

He couldn't possibly hold out until Jim returned, or in the hope that some other vessel would happen along. The pile, his arm, spillthrough, the Fleury threatening to break in two ... he enumerated all the factors.

If he went aboard the Cl.u.s.ter Queen now, Altman would at least give him pa.s.sage to port. Any charges Brad would make would never hold up without substantiation. And Altman would see that he brought nothing with him that could back up the accusations. It would be just as easy for the crew of the Queen to prove that Brad Conally had conceived the whole weird account of a.s.sault and piracy as a means of winning back the cargo he was faced with losing.

He knew, however, that no matter what happened, he could kiss the Fleury goodbye. Altman would never allow it to reach port. There might be evidence aboard--perhaps evidence as simple as finger prints--to prove that Altman or one of his crew had tampered with the machinery.

Brad reached out to extend the gooseneck of the mike toward him.

But the stellar grid showing through the direct-view port was blotted out suddenly. He jerked his gaze to the scope. The Queen was overhead--almost within grappling distance!

He started to shout out, but at the same time brilliant h.e.l.l exploded outside.

The Cl.u.s.ter Queen's jetwash raked across the upper bow of the Fleury, throwing its nose down and its tail up and over in a hateful, wrenching spin.

The spin continued, losing none of its neck-snapping vehemence, as the Queen burst off into s.p.a.ce. The harness cut across Brad's aching arm and set up a new, rending torture. But his good arm shot out and found the forward belly jet lever.

With what mushily reacted like the last erg of energy in the normal drive converter tanks, the jet responded feebly. He nursed the power carefully, determined not to waste juice through overcorrection. Finally the Fleury steadied and resumed immobility of att.i.tude.

"Sorry, Conally," Altman apologized with exaggerated concern. "But her majesty's acting up frisky-like. Can't seem to do much with her....

Maybe if you came aboard we might find some way to quiet her down. How about it?"

Brad bit his lips and tightened his good fist until fingernails knifed into the palm. "No, d.a.m.n you!" he shouted with all the volume his lungs could muster.

He summoned all the s.p.a.cewise epithets any stevedore or crewman had ever used, added a few he imagined no one had thought of before, and held them in abeyance until Altman would answer.

But no sound came out of the speaker.

The reason was apparent on the scope. A half dozen of the ma.s.sive crates had crashed through the hull--this time out of hold number One, the ma.s.someter showed--and the Cl.u.s.ter Queen was on her way to take them aboard.

But he was more concerned with another complication. The red power utilization indicator of the good hypertube was in motion, swinging back to zero on its dial. He saw the flicker of the needle in the corner of his vision.

He checked the suspicion against the blips on the scope and obtained verification ... the outlines of the Queen and the crates were fuzzy, despite the fact they were still nearby spatially. The fuzziness could only result from the Fleury's being removed hyperspatially from that vicinity.

He had accidentally touched the hyperjet lever while applying normal power to correct the three-dimensional spin. Which way had he moved it?

Had he gone further into hypers.p.a.ce? Or had he fallen further down the descending node toward spillthrough?

Studying sensations in his body for an indication of abnormal pain, he stared abruptly out the view port. The twisting pain was there--inside his chest. The star lines were short.