rols stagger back and cower in fear; the
man's bullet-shaped head was covered by his upraised arms: there was
some horror outside those windows that his eyes had no wish to see.
Beside him the towering figure of Schwartzmann appeared; he had sprung
into Chet's view, and he screamed orders at the fear-stricken pilot.

"Fool! Swine!" Schwartzmann was shouting. "Do something! You said you
could fly this ship!" In desperation he leaped forward and reached for
the controls himself.

Chet's blurred faculties snapped sharply to attention. That yellow glow
against the port--the jarring of their ship--it meant instant
destruction once that searching snout found some place where it could
secure a hold. If the air-pressure within the ship were released; if
even a crack were opened!--

"Here, you!" he shouted to the frantic Schwartzmann who was jerking
frenziedly at the controls that no longer gave response. "Cut these
ropes!--leave those instruments alone, you fool!" He was suddenly
vibrant with hate as he realized what this man had done: he had struck
him, Chet, down as he would have felled an animal for butchery; he had
stolen their ship; and now he was losing it. Chet hardly thought of his
own desperate plight in his rage at this threat to their ship, and at
Schwartzmann's inability to help himself.

"Cut these ropes!" he repeated. "Damn it all, turn me loose; I can fly
us out!" He added his frank opinion of Schwartzmann and all his men. And
Schwartzmann, though his dark face flushed angrily red for one instant,
leaped to Chet's side and slashed at the cords with a knife.

The room swam before Chet's dizzy eyes as he came to his feet. He half
fell, half drew himself full length toward the valve that he alone knew.
Then again he was on his feet, and he gripped at the ball-control with
one hand while he opened a master throttle that cut in this new supply
of explosive.

* * * * *

The room had been silent with the silence of empty space, save only for
the scraping of a horrid body across the ship's outer shell. The silence
was shattered now as if by the thunder of many guns. There was no time
for easing themselves into gradual flight. Chet thrust forward on the
ball-control, and the blast from their stern threw the ship as if it had
been fired from a giant cannon.

The self-compensating floor swung back and up; Chet's weight was almost
unbearable as the ship beneath him leaped out and on, a