to correct the three-dimensional spin. Which way had he moved it?
Had he gone further into hyperspace? 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.

He swore and scowled at his luck.

Then, as the pain intensified, he grasped the lever of the hyperjet
again and thrust it forward. The tube sputtered feebly, came on full
force for a second, sputtered again and was silent.

He jerked the lever back and forth on the forward side of neutral and
rammed it desperately all the way forward. The tube coughed, grabbed
once more for a moment, and sputtered out. He goosed it four more times,
but only got two boosts as a result. Then he twisted it past the stop to
the first emergency position. It wheezed, fired for two seconds and
died.

Sweat forming in beads on his face, he ignored the pain in his shoulder
and reached to the control column with his injured arm. He swung back
the second safety stop bar out of the way and rammed the lever all the
way forward.

The tube fired for another second, but that was all. He had used the
last erg.

But how much time had he bought with his final means of retreat from the
spillthrough trough? He checked the celestial crisscrosses.... Not
much....

* * * * *

Altman? he wondered suddenly. Where was the Cluster Queen? It wasn't
showing up on the scope any longer. Neither were the crates. Had he
retrieved them and shoved off? Brad jiggled the scope's brilliance
control, wondering whether it was faulty and was simply not registering
the Queen.

An abrupt _thud_, coincident with a sharp jar throughout the ship and a
sudden shifting of the pseudogravitational field almost to normal,
brought him upright in his seat. He realized immediately what was
happening.

He hadn't been able to pick up the Queen on the scope because it was too
close to register as a blip separate from the central luminescence on
the screen which was representative of the Fleury itself. Altman had
maneuvered alongside, aligned the hatch flanges of the two ships and
activated his magnetic grapples. The nearness of his grav coils had
restored some of the Fleury's internal stability. He was preparing to
board the Fleury. He would be aboard within ten minutes.... It took that
long to ma