The mess-room, all tidied up, was next; two locked doors were at the back of it, and also an open entrance to the kitchen and food storage. They glanced around at everything, briefly, and went on to the control room. It was considerably bigger than the one on the _Asteroid_ and luxuriously equipped. The pilot's section was in a transparently walled little office by itself. The instruments showed both Dardrean and Empire markings and instructions. Channok switched the dead drives off first and then reached out, quite automatically, for the spot above the control desk where a light button ought to be-- Light instantly flooded the interior of the _Ra-Twelve_. The intruders jumped a foot. It was as if the ship had suddenly come alive around them! Then they looked at each other and grinned. "Automatic," Channok sighed. "Might as well do it the easy way!" Peer admitted. She slid the Ophto Needle she'd half-drawn back into its holster. * * * * * The _Ra-Twelve_ had eighteen fully charged drive batteries still untouched. With some system of automatic power transfer working, she could have gone cruising along on her course for months to come. However, she hadn't been cruising, Channok discovered next; the speed controls were set to "Full Emergency".... An empty ship, racing through space till the battery she was operating on went dead-- He shook his head. And then Peer was tapping his arm. "Look what I found! I think it's her log!" It was a flat steel box with an illuminated tape at its front end, on which a date was printed. A line of spidery Dardrean script was engraved on a plate on the top of the box. "_Ra-Twelve_," Peer translated. "That's her name." "So it's a Dardrean ship! But they're using the Empire calendar," Channok pointed out, "which would make it an Empire crew.... How do you work this thing? If it is her log, it might give us an idea of what's happened." "Afterwards, Channy! I just found another door leading off the other end of the control room--" The door opened into a second passage, parallel to the one by which they had come forward, but only half as long and very dimly lit. Filled with uneasy speculations, Channok forgot his own instructions and let Peer take the lead. "More cabins!" her voice said, just as he became aware of the wrecked door-frame out of which the light was spilling ahead of her. A woman had been using that cabin. A woman who had liked beautiful and expensive things, judging by what was strewn about. It looked, Channok thought, as if she hadn't had time to finish her packing. "Her spacesuit's gone, though," Peer's voice announced from the interior of a disordered closet.