Deliberately Akars walked over and kicked Captain Cardigan in the chest. Cardigan's face remained impassive, the eyes expressionless, yet there was a barely perceptible quiver that told the blow had hurt. Akars grinned and landed another, then scowled and rubbed his ear with the back of a hairy hand. It was the first navigator, Box Jordan, whom he owed a special grudge. He'd nursed special ideas for Jordan, the agony of broken bones, of a merciless beating, before death should wipe him out. But Jordan wasn't here. Built into the chart table was the fireproof compartment that held the ship's log. Akars removed the bulky volume, opened it upon the table, and ripped out the last four page entries, crumpling the thin metallic foil before throwing it to the floor. With the log would perish all records of the Urulium find; if any spaceman's notes or diary held mention of it the _Cinnabar's_ fate would destroy that also. Akars moved toward the control board, grasped the refrigeration controls, swung them to "off." Immediately alarm bells clanged warning. He could feel the horror which his act engendered in the men who helplessly watched it--something of that horror chilled even him. For without refrigeration the fuel tanks would quickly warm up. The compressed gaseous fuel, held inert only by refrigeration, would spontaneously explode. The _Cinnabar_, by that simple movement of two levers, was doomed. * * * * * The alarm bells echoed madly about him as he left the navigation compartment and walked further aft, to the stern deck where the ship's tender nestled against her hull. An airtight telescoping tube connected parent ship and life ship, and Akars saw that the manhole cover was slid aside. Someone was either in the tender or had just left it--perhaps one of the spacemen now lying beside the manhole--on a routine maintenance job. Akars climbed the short ladder into the life ship's tiny control compartment. Lamps were burning, but there was nobody in the compartment, nor in the little vessel's supply compartment, engine room, or living quarters. Satisfied, Akars checked food stores, fuel and air gauges with keen satisfaction. Everything was in perfect order. His scheme couldn't fail. Only a fool would have let a chance like this slip by. Then, thinking of Jordan again, Akars cursed. The lean, red-headed first navigator had been poison to him ever since joining the ship. Jordan hadn't been afraid of him. Other officers had excused or overlooked badly done or neglected work--Box Jordan never. The red-head had tongue-lashed Akars too often, and Akars had promised himself a meeting with Jordan--Jordan helpless, paralyzed, but fully conscious and able to feel every blow that fury could inflict. Now it seemed he was to be cheated of that.