Her hair, Gavin saw, had come undone and fell about her bare white shoulders like an inky cloud. A trickle of blood drew a crooked red line from a cut above her left eye down across her high cheek bone to her small pointed chin. One of the rose plastic breast plates had been torn completely away, and the rose gown was split up her left hip from sandal to belt. Gavin plunged for the door. "This way!" Nadia started aft at a run. "The ladder! The elevators are stalled!" "Chief engineer?" Gavin grunted. "Where's the chief?" "Unconscious! Concussion. Don't know how serious," she flung back at him as she dashed along the corridor, her torn skirt streaming out behind her. "The first is dead. The second has a broken leg." She reached the emergency ladder and threw herself down it with reckless abandon. Gavin followed a little more cautiously. The engine room, Gavin saw when he and Nadia dropped to the deck, was functioning smoothly enough now, although there was no evidence of the explosion. A smear of blood against a bulkhead caught his eyes, then a twisted body lashed to the deck. But a jetman, a yellow Venusian girl, naked to the waist, was at her post beside the quartzite windows of the tubes. Sweat poured off her in rivulets as she watched the color of the explosions to check the mixture. The master mechanic, a fat Terran, was at the bridge televisor. He gave Gavin a relieved glance. "Bridge calling, sir." Gavin jumped to the televisor. He saw the lean wolfish profile of Captain Cabot on the screen. Cabot's cheek had been laid open to the bone. One arm swung uselessly. His features were bleak as granite. Gavin said, "Murdock reporting, sir." "Take over, Mr. Murdock." Cabot's voice sounded harsh, metallic through the instrument. "We're describing an orbit about Venus at an altitude of seven kilometers." "Check." "Is Miss Petrovna there?" "Yes, sir." "Let me speak to her." The girl approached the televisor. Captain Cabot ordered her in a terse voice, "Stay with Murdock. If he shows any signs of treachery, shoot him!" "Yes, sir," said the girl. She plucked the tiny dart-gun from the spring clip on her leg where it had been visible through the rent in her skirt. "You heard my orders, Mr. Murdock," Cabot's cold voice issued from the instrument. "Stand by to fire the starboard tube-bank. We're coming out of the clouds again." "Check." In spite of himself Gavin couldn't help but admire the coolness of Josiah Cabot. He turned to Nadia. "What happened?" he demanded. The girl, her long black eyes serious, had her dart-gun leveled at his chest. "I was at the scanner," she replied in an unsteady voice. "We cleared the clouds, making five G's. This ship was right on top of us." "What ship?"