[Illustration]

"Can you help me, Guz?" Willows asked. It was obvious that he didn't
want to open the suits. He didn't want to see what might be inside. De
Hooch helped him.

They were both alive, but unconscious. Bones had been broken, and Metty
appeared to be suffering from concussion. They were badly damaged, but
they'd live.

De Hooch and Willows made two trips down E and C corridors, carrying the
men on a stretcher, to get them in bed. De Hooch splinted the broken
bones as best he could and gave each of them a shot of narcodyne. He had
to do the medical work because Quillan, the medic, was trapped in
Corridor A. He called Quillan on the phone to tell him what had
happened. He described the signs and symptoms of the victims as best he
could, and then did what Quillan told him to do.

"They ought to be all right," Quillan said. "With that dope in them,
they'll be out cold for the next twelve hours, and by that time, the
boys from Base will be here. Just leave 'em alone and don't move 'em any
more."

"Right. I'll call you back later. Right now, Puss and I are going to see
what's wrong with the control linkages on Number Two."

"Right. By-o."

De Hooch and Willows walked back to the control room of Number Two
Reactor in silence.

Once inside the control room, de Hooch said: "How are those control
circuits?" Willows was supposed to have been checking them while he had
been dragging Ferguson and Metty out of the antechamber.

"Well, I ... I'm not sure. I'll show you what I've found so far, Guz.
You ought to take a look at them. I ... I'd like you to take a look-see.
I think"--he gestured toward the console--"I think they're all right
except for the freezer vernier and the pressure release control."

_He doesn't trust his own work_, de Hooch thought. _Well, that's all
right. Neither do I._

Painstakingly, the two of them went over the checking circuits. Willows
was right. The freezer and pressure controls were inoperable.

"Damn," said de Hooch. "Double damn."

"They're probably both stuck at the firewall," Willows said.

"Sure. Where else? I'll have to go in there and unstick 'em. Help me get
back into that two-legged tank again." He wished he knew more about what
Ferguson and Metty had been doing. He wished he knew why the two men had
gone into the anteroom in the first place. He wished a lot of things,
but wishing was a useless pastime at this stage of the game.

If only one of the two men had be