"Sure," said Docchi. "Everyone in the main dome is safe--_if_ everyone is in there. Vogel, do you know where Cameron is? Are you certain a nurse or an accidental hasn't wandered in here to see what's wrong? We'll give you time to think about it." Again they waited and waited. Each second was tangible, the precious duration that lives and events were measured with--and the measure was exceedingly slow. Meanwhile Jordan flipped on the telecom and searched the rocket dome. They saw nothing; there was not even a geepee in sight. Docchi watched the screen impassively; what he thought didn't show on his face. And still there was no reply from the engineer in the gravity station. "All right. We've given you a chance," said Docchi. His voice was brittle. "You know what we're going to do. If anybody gets hurt you can take the credit." He turned away from the screen. "Jordan, let's go. Hit the shell with the bow." Jordan grasped the levers. The ship hardly quivered as it tilted upward and leaped away. It roared in the air and then fell silent as it passed into space. And the silence was worse than any sound--it was filled with the imagined hiss of air escaping from a great hole in the transparent covering of the dome. Jordan sat at the controls. "Did he?" "He had to. He wouldn't risk killing some innocent person." "I don't know," said Jordan. "If you'd said he wouldn't want his pretty machinery banged up it would be easier to believe." "I didn't hear anything. We would have if we'd hit." "It was fast. Could we tell? Maybe Vogel played it safe and had the inner shell out of the way even if he didn't give us the automatic signal. In that event it's all right because it would close as soon as we got out of the way even if we did rip through the outer shell. All the air wouldn't escape." Jordan sat there for a moment, silently reviewing his own arguments. He twisted the lever and the ship leaped forward. "Cameron I don't mind. He had time to get away and he knew what we were going to do. I keep thinking Nona _might_ have been there." "He opened it," said Docchi harshly. "We didn't hit the dome. I didn't hear anything. Nona wasn't there." His face was gray, there was no light at all in it. "Come on," he said, walking away. Jordan rocked back and forth. The hemisphere that held what remained of his body was suited for it. He set the auto-controls and reduced the gravity to quarter normal. He bent his arms and shoved himself into the air, deftly catching a guide rail, swinging along it. It was pure chance that he glanced toward the back of the ship instead of forward as he entered the corridor after Docchi. There was a light blinking at a cabin door. It was occupied. 4