The beam was brought on the double and the Lensman himself blasted away the designated cover. Then, throwing an insulated plate over the red-hot casing he lay on his back--"Hand me a light!"--and peered briefly upward into the bowels of the Gargantuan mechanism. "I thought so," he grunted. "Piece of four-oh stranded, eighteen inches long. Ditmars number six clip ends, spaced to twenty inches between hole-centers. Myerbeer insulation on center section, doubled. Snap it up! One of you other fellows, bring me a short, heavy screwdriver and a Ditmars six wrench!" The technicians worked fast and in a matter of seconds the stuff was there. The Lensman labored briefly but hugely; and much more surely than if he were dependent upon the rays of the hand-lamp to penetrate the smoky, steamy, greasy murk in which he toiled. Then: "QX--give her the juice!" he snapped. They gave it, and to the stunned surprise of all, she took it. The liner again was free! "Kind of a jury-rigging I gave it, but it'll hold long enough to get you into port, sir," he reported to the captain in his sanctum, saluting crisply. He was in for it now, he knew, as the officer stared at him. But he _couldn't_ have let that shipload of passengers get ground up into hamburger. Anyway, there was no way out. * * * * * In apparent reaction he turned pale and trembled, and the officer hastily took from his medicinal stores a bottle of choice brandy. "Here, drink this," he directed, proffering the glass: Kinnison did so. More, he seized the bottle from the captain's hand and drank that, too--all of it--a draft which would have literally turned him inside out a few months since. Then, to the captain's horrified disgust, he took from his filthy dungarees a packet of bentlam and began to chew it, idiotically blissful. Thence, and shortly, into oblivion. "Poor devil--you poor, poor devil," the commander murmured, and had him put into a bunk. When he had come to and had had his pickup, the captain came and regarded him soberly. "You were a man once. An engineer, and a crackerjack; or I'm an oiler's pimp," he said levelly. "Maybe," Kinnison replied, white and weak. "I'm all right yet, except once in a while--" "I know," the captain frowned. "No cure?" "Not a chance. Tried dozens. So--" and the Lensman spread out his hands in a hopeless gesture. "Better tell me your name, anyway--your real name. That'll let your planet know that you aren't--" "Better not," the sufferer shook his aching head. "Folks think I'm dead. Better let them keep on thinking so. Williams is the name, sir; William Williams, of Aldebaran II." "As you say." "How far are we from where I boarded you?" "Close. Less than half a billion miles. This, the second, is our home planet: your asteroid belt is just outside the orbit of the fourth." "I can hop it in an hour, easy. Guess I'll buzz off."