anetoids. We'll be wrecked."

"Nothing I can do, Blaine, without shutting down the atomic engines.
Then we'd freeze to death and run out of oxygen. These ships ought to
have a spare engine just to take care of the heating and air
conditioning. I always said so."

"What happened to the ignition system?"

Tom Farley looked over his shoulder apprehensively. "Dirty work,
Blaine," he whispered. "I'm sure of it. Tool marks on the breech of the
stern tube. And there's one of those guards I don't like the looks of."

"Nonsense. The k-metal people know their men; they picked these three
especially for the job."

"Who else could do it? There's only the five of us on board."

There might be something in what Tommy said, at that. A thing like this
couldn't just happen by itself. And, come to think of it, one of those
guards was a queer looking bird: dwarfed and hunch-backed, sort of, and
with long dangling arms. It would be better to investigate.

"Get 'em up here, Tommy," Blaine said.

* * * * *

The RX8 drove on and on through the uncharted wastes outside the orbit
of Mars. None of the space ships of the inner planets ever ventured out
this far, and Blaine knew there was grave danger of colliding with some
of the small bodies with which the zone was infested. If one of those
guards was the traitor he was risking his own neck as well as theirs.

Two of them entered the control room with Tom Farley, big, husky
fellows of stolid countenance and armed with regulation flame-ray
pistols and gas grenades.

"Where's the other, the dwarf?" Blaine asked, his suspicions mounting
immediately.

"In his bunk," Tom replied with a meaning look. "He said he'd be up in
a few minutes."

The pilot-commander addressed the guards. "Fellows," he said, "I
suppose you know we're in a serious fix. The ship is out of control and
we've missed Mars, where your metal was to be delivered. We're speeding
out into the unknown, out past the limits of space-travel toward the
orbits of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus--God knows where. And my engineer
thinks that one of your number has tampered with the machinery. Know
anything about it?" Blaine eyed them keenly.

One of the guards, Mahoney, flushed hotly. "No, sir," he snapped. "At
least Kelly and meself had nothin' to do with it. But we've been
suspicionin' that little Antazzo ever since we came out. It's a
peculiar way he has about him, the divil."

"You think h