went back
to sleep. Thompson returned to his figures. They were correct.

Over the ship's communication system came the soft throb of a gong. The
warning that the jump was coming. In his lap, Buster awakened, instantly
sank twenty claws into Thompson's clothing. Thompson reached out and
took a firm grip on the hand holds on his desk, began to breathe deeply.
The gong sounded again. Final warning that the ship was going into
hyper-flight. Thompson took as deep a breath as possible, held it.

The gong went into silence. The ship throbbed. The jump was in progress.
Thompson had the dazed impression that every atom in his body tried to
turn over at once. For a moment, there was a feeling of intense strain.
Then the feeling was gone as the ship and its contents passed into
hyper-flight. Thompson began to breathe again. In his lap, Buster
relaxed his claw holds, began to purr. Buster was an old hand at taking
these jumps.

"EEEEEEyooow!"

The eerie scream that came echoing through the ship seemed to lift up
every single strand of hair on Thompson's head. Thompson ran out of the
cabin. The scream came again, from the lounge. Thompson entered the
lounge just in time to see Kurkil standing in the middle of the room,
rip the last remnant of clothing from his body. Revealed under the
lights, his skin was turning a vivid green.

Fortune was trying to approach him. Kurkil was warning the man off.

"Stay away, stay away. Don't touch me. You'll get it."

In the split second that was needed for Thompson to take in the
situation, the green color flowing over Kurkil's body deepened in
intensity.

As the color deepened, the screams bubbling on his lips began to die
away. He fell slowly, like a man who is coming unhinged one joint at a
time.

He was dead before he hit the floor. Dead so completely that not even a
convulsive tremor passed through his body.

A frozen silence held the lounge. For this was a dream, a nightmare,
wild, distorted imagery.

Fortune's hand waved vaguely in the direction of Sol Cluster. "It looks
as if we're not as bug and stress proof as they said we were."

"What happened?"

"He was sitting there in the chair and I thought he was asleep. Then he
was screaming and tearing his clothes off." Ross spread his hands. "I
tried to help--"

"I know," Thompson said. He was trying to decide what to do. This ship
possessed no facilities for handling the dead. Such a contingency had
been thought too remote f