Tom pulled the ventilator grill down, and climbed up into the shaft. Greg followed, with Johnny at his heels, pulling the grill back up into place from the inside. They waited for a moment, but there was no sound from the lounge. "All right," Johnny said breathlessly. "Let's move." Swiftly they started down the dark tunnel. 11. The Haunted Ship They did not pause, even to catch their breath, for the first twenty minutes as Tom led them swiftly and silently down through the maze of corridors and chutes that made up the ventilation system of the huge ship. Greg lost his bearing completely in the first twenty seconds; each time his brother paused at a junction of tubes, he felt a wave of panic rise up in his throat ... suppose they lost themselves in here! He heard Johnny's trousers flapping behind him, saw Tom's figure flit past another grill up ahead, and plunged doggedly on. It was amazingly hard to move quietly. Even in stocking feet they made a soft thud with each footfall. But there was no sign of detection, no sound of alarm. Finally they came out into a large shaft which allowed them to stand upright, and they stopped to catch their breath. "Main tube to the living quarters," Tom said when they had caught up to him. "Joins with the lower-level tube by a series of chutes. We've actually been circumnavigating the ship ... I wanted to get as far away from that lounge compartment as possible, in case they check up on you right away." "We can't have much time," Johnny said. "That second guard must have been coming to relieve the other, and when the first one doesn't report back, they'll smell something fishy." * * * * * They talked it over for a moment. Johnny had been careful to leave the hatchway into the corridor ajar before he climbed into the ventilator shaft, and then he had pulled the shaft snugly into place behind him. Anyone who came would find two unconscious guards, a burnt-out hole in the wall, and the door unlocked. "We'll hope that he takes things at face value, and assumes we're at large in the ship somewhere, for a while at least," Johnny said. "That hole in the wall is going to set them back a couple of steps, too." "But they'll sound the alarm, at least," Tom said. "You bet they will! They'll have every man on the crew shaking down the ship for us. But they may not think of the ventilators until they can't find us anywhere else." "But sooner or later they're bound to think of it." "That's true," Johnny said. "Unless they keep seeing us in the ship. The way I figure it, this crew has been on battle stations plenty of times. They'll be able to search the whole ship in half an hour. We're just going to have to show ourselves ... at least enough to keep them searching." "Well, what if they do think of the ventilators?" Greg said. "They'd still have a time finding us." "Maybe, but don't underestimate Tawney. He might just mask up his crew and flood the tubes with cyanide."