and,
after a little search, got a container of liquid soap from the
supplies. Then he went back down to the control room. He made the jump
to the chair, holding on with one hand while he held the container of
soap with the other.

"Can you hold me up with one hand? I'll need both hands to work with."

"In this gravity? Easy. Give me your belt."

Captain Atef Al-Amin grabbed Jayjay's belt and hung on, while Jayjay
used both hands to squirt the liquid soap all over the captain from
the waist down.

It would have made a great newspaper photo. Captain Al-Amin, wedged
between two steel cabinets, hanging upside-down under a pull of
one-fifteenth standard gee, holding up his rescuer by the belt. The
rescuer, right-side-up, was squeezing a plastic container of liquid
soap and directing the stream against the captain.

When Al-Amin was thoroughly wetted with the solution, Jayjay again
braced his feet against the steel panels and pulled.

With a slick, slurping sound, the captain slid loose, and the two of
them toppled head-over-heels across the room. Jayjay was prepared for
that; he stopped them both by grasping an overhead desk-top as they
went by. Then he let go, and the two men dropped slowly to what had
been the ceiling.

"_Hoo!_" said the captain. "That's a relief! Allah!"

Jayjay took a look at the man's arm. "Radius might be broken; ulna
seems O.K. We'll splint it later. Your legs are going to tingle like
crazy when the feeling comes back."

"I know. But we have other things to worry about, Mr. Kelvin.
Evidently you and I are the only ones awake so far, and I'm in no
condition to go moving all over this spinning bucket just yet. Would
you do some reconnoitering for me?"

"Sure," said Jayjay. "Just tell me what you want."

* * * * *

Within half an hour, the news was in.

There were five men alive in the ship: Jayjay, Captain Al-Amin, Jeffry
Hull, Second Officer Vandenbosch, and Maintenance Officer Smith.
Vandenbosch had broken both legs and had to be strapped into a bunk
and given a shot of narcolene.

Jayjay had put on a spacesuit and taken a look outside. The whole rear
end of the ship was gone, and with it had gone the First Officer, the
Radio Officer, and the Engineering Officer. And, of course, the main
power plant of the ship.

Most of the cargo hold was intact, but the walls had been breached,
and the air was gone.

"Well, that's that," said Captain Al-Amin. Jay