fatal. He would
use it now. The climber was very close. A cropped head arose through the
floor opening, and Ross struck, knowing as his hand chopped against the
folds of a fur hood that he had failed.

But the impetus of that unexpected blow saved him after all. With a
choked cry the man disappeared, crashing down upon the one following
him. A scream and shouts were heard from below, and a shot ripped up the
well as Ross scrambled away from it. He might have delayed the final
battle, but they had him cornered. He faced that fact bleakly. They need
only sit below and let nature take its course. His session in the
lifeboat had restored his strength, but a man could not live forever
without food and water.

However, he had bought himself perhaps a yard of time which must be put
to work. Turning to examine the seats, Ross discovered that they could
be unhooked from their webbing swings. Freeing all of them, he dragged
their weight to the stairwell and jammed them together to make a
barricade. It could not hold long against any determined push from
below, but, he hoped, it would deflect bullets if some sharpshooter
tried to wing him by ricochet. Every so often there was the crash of a
shot and some shouting, but Ross was not going to be drawn out of cover
by that.

He paced around the control cabin, still hunting for a weapon. The
symbols on the levers and buttons were meaningless to him. They made him
feel frustrated because he imagined that among that countless array were
some that might help him out of the trap if he could only guess their
use.

Once more he stood by the platform thinking. This was the point from
which the ship had been sailed--in the air or on some now frozen sea.
These control boards must have given the ship's master the means not
only of propelling the vast bulk, but of unloading and loading cargo,
lighting, heating, ventilation, and perhaps defense! Of course, every
control might be dead now, but he remembered that in the lifeboat the
machines had worked successfully, fulfilled expertly the duty for which
they had been constructed.

The only step remaining was to try his luck. Having made his decision,
Ross simply shut his eyes as he had in a very short and almost forgotten
childhood, turned around three times, and pointed. Then he looked to
see where luck had directed him.

His finger indicated a board before which there had been three seats,
and he crossed to it slowly, with a sense that on