om the bleeding of those wounded in the
tube-explosions. But were they?

* * * * *

They reached the after-deck whose stair's head gave a view of the
wrecked tube-rooms beneath. The lower decks had been smashed by terrific
forces. Kent's practiced eyes ran rapidly over the shattered
rocket-tubes.

"They've back-blasted from being fired too fast," he said. "Who was
controlling the ship when this happened?"

"Galling, our second-officer," answered Krell. "He had found us routed
too close to the dead-area's edge and was trying to get away from it in
a hurry, when he used the tubes too fast, and half of them
back-blasted."

"If Galling was at the controls in the pilot-house, how did the
explosion kill him?" asked Liggett skeptically. Krell turned quickly.

"The shock threw him against the pilot-house wall and fractured his
skull--he died in an hour," he said. Liggett was silent.

"Well, this ship will never move again," Kent said. "It's too bad that
the explosion blew out your tanks, but we ought to find fuel somewhere
in the wreck-pack for the _Pallas_. And now we'd best get back."

As they returned up the dim corridor Kent managed to walk beside Marta
Mallen, and, without being seen, he contrived to detach his
suit-phone--the compact little radiophone case inside his space-suit's
neck--and slip it into the girl's grasp. He dared utter no word of
explanation, but apparently she understood, for she had concealed the
suit-phone by the time they reached the upper-deck.

Kent and Liggett prepared to don their space-helmets, and before
entering the airlock, Kent turned to Krell.

"We'll expect you at the _Pallas_ first hour to-morrow, and we'll start
searching the wreck-pack with a dozen of our men," he said.

He then extended his hand to the girl. "Good-by, Miss Mallen. I hope we
can have a talk soon."

He had said the words with double meaning, and saw understanding in her
eyes. "I hope we can, too," she said.

Kent's nod to Jandron went unanswered, and he and Liggett adjusted their
helmets and entered the airlock.

Once out of it, they kicked rapidly away from the _Martian Queen_,
floating along with the wreck-pack's huge mass to their right, and only
the star-flecked emptiness of infinity to their left. In a few minutes
they reached the airlock of the _Pallas_.

* * * * *

They found Captain Crain awaiting them anxiously. Briefly Kent reported
everythi