ding down into the pod was
just ahead, ten yards, five--

A man appeared in the corridor ahead, coming from some storeroom with a
rack of plastic bottles in his hand.

"You'll have to run now," came the woman's thought, coolly. "Don't
panic. You can still make it."

The man with the bottles yelled. He began to run toward Hyrst and
Shearing, dropping the rack to leave his hands free. In the loungeroom
behind them the card-party broke up. Hyrst took Shearing by the arm and
clamped down even tighter on his mind, giving him a single command. They
ran together, fast.

The men from the lounge poured out into the main corridor. Their voices
were confused and very loud. Ahead, the man who had been bringing the
bottles was now between Hyrst and the stair. He was a brown, hard man
who looked like a pilot. He said, "You better stop," and then he
grappled with Hyrst and Shearing. The three of them spun around in a
clumsy dance, Shearing moving like an automaton. Hyrst and the pilot
flailing away with their fists, and then the pilot fell back hard on the
seat of his pants, with the blood bursting out of his nose and his eyes
glazing. Hyrst raced for the stair, propelling Shearing. They tumbled
down it with a shot from a bee-gun buzzing over their heads. It was a
short stair with a double-hatch door at the bottom. They fell through
it, and Hyrst slammed it shut almost on the toes of a man coming down
the stair behind them. The automatic lock took hold. Hyrst told
Shearing, "You can stop now."

A few minutes later, from the great swag belly of the _Happy Dream_, a
small space-skiff shot away and was quickly lost in the star-shot
immensity above the Belt.

CHAPTER IV

It did not stay lost for long. Shearing was at the controls. The
chronometer showed fourteen hours and twenty-seven minutes since they
left the _Happy Dream_. Shearing had spent eight of those hours in a
species of comatose slumber, from which he had roused out practically
normal. Now Hyrst was heavily asleep in the pneumo-chair beside him.

Shearing punched him. "Wake up."

After several more punches Hyrst groaned and opened his eyes. He mumbled
a question, and Shearing pointed out the wide curved port that gave full
vision forward and on both sides.

"It was a good try," he said, "but I don't think we're going to make it.
Look there. No, farther back. See it? Now the other side. And there's
one astern."

Still sleepy, but alarmed, Hyrst swung his