one shot angle off the wall, close beside the fleeing form, but
the man didn't stop. Instead he headed for the bridge. Gene realized he
could lock himself in, keep them from the ship controls. He could hold
out there the rest of the voyage.

"We've got to stop him!"

Maher close behind, they ran up the stairs on the Second's heels. Up the
companionway they pounded, the Second increasing his lead. A door opened
ahead of him and Ann O'Donnell appeared.

Symonds cursed and tried to pass her. Ann deftly slid out one pretty leg
and the officer turned a somersault, and brought up against the wall at
the foot of the stairs to the upper deck and the bridge.

But the Second was too frightened to let a little thing like a fall stop
him. He went scrambling up the stairs on all fours. Gene was still too
far away, and Ann moved like a streak of light. She sailed through the
air in a long dancer's leap and with two bounds was up the stair, ahead
of the scrambling, fear-stricken officer.

"Out of my way, bitch," and Symonds hurled himself toward Ann.

Gene leaped forward, but he needn't have bothered. Ann lifted one of her
educated feet, caught the Second under the chin and he came down the
stair like a sack of meal. Gene caught his full weight.

The two men fell in a scramble of flailing arms and legs, knocking the
props out from under Maher, who had started out after them. Just how the
mixup might have turned out they were not to know, for just then the
vast weight of Schwenky descended upon the three and Maher let out a
scream of anguish. But Gene and Symonds were on the bottom, too crushed
by this tactic to make a sound.

* * * * *

It was minutes later when Gene came back to consciousness, finding his
head resting in Ann O'Donnell's lap while her swift hands prodded him
here and there, looking for broken bones.

"I'm dead for sure," groaned Gene.

"You've just had the wind knocked out of you. You'll be all right," and
Ann let his head fall from her grasp with a thump. She stood up, a
little abashed at the going over she'd been giving him.

"Where're my mutineers?" Gene asked.

"Went to lock Symonds with the others. What is going to happen now? I'm
not sure I like this development, now it's happened."

"You should have thought of that before you tripped Symonds," said Gene.
"But I'll admit there are problems. For instance, with all the officers
in the brig, how can we be sure we can