Wayne immediately started constructing a radio transmitter from convenient materials in the laboratory. It was fairly simple. He was not interrupted for nearly two hours. At which time he was saying into his improvised microphone: "Seven hours? That long? Can't make it any sooner than that? Five hours? Six?" And then it was not a Cirissin voice behind him which said: "Drop that. Put up your hands and turn around!" It was Sheilah. Wayne turned and saw her floating at the doorway pointing a long, tubular metal object at him, her finger poised on a protruding lever. "What's that?" Wayne asked. Sheilah said, "It's a gun I found after lookin' all over the damn ship. I'm going to kill you. And then I'm going to kill your Cirissin friends. You're nothing but a dirty traitor, and I wouldn't seduce you if--I never did trust you scientists. Maybe I'll be killed, too, but I don't care." She was close to tears. "You're going to kill me?" Wayne said. "With that? How do you know it's even a gun? Looks more like a fire extinguisher to me. Aw, you poor little imbecile, I haven't had a chance to explain yet, but--" Sheilah said, "You make me sick." She pulled the trigger. The object was not a fire extinguisher, after all. It was quite obviously a weapon of some kind. Also it seemed obvious that Sheilah had been pointing the wrong end of the weapon toward Wayne. One more obvious fact that Wayne had time to comprehend was that the weapon was not a recoilless type. But by then Sheilah had gone limp and the gun had rebounded from her grasp and was sailing at Wayne's head. He ducked but not fast enough. The object whacked him solidly on top of his head. His brain exploded into a display of dazzling lights, excruciating pain and deafening noise. Then the lights went out and a long, dense silence set in. When Wayne fought through the layers of renewed pain and opened his eyes, he was still floating near his makeshift radio equipment in the laboratory. Sheilah still hung limply in mid-air near the door. The tubular weapon wavered near the ceiling. The radio transmitter was still open. It was just as though he'd been unconscious no more than a few minutes. But Wayne had a strong feeling that it had been more than that. Therefore he was only shocked, rather than stunned, when a glance at his wristwatch indicated six hours and forty minutes had elapsed. He held his head tightly in both hands to keep it from flying off in all directions at once, and he tried to think. He knew it was important to think--fast and straight. Six hours and forty minutes. That was too long to be unconscious from a simple blow on the head, and his head didn't really hurt that bad. Probably the weapon had still been firing whatever mysterious ammunition it used when it struck him; and when it bounced off his head it had turned, and he'd been caught in its blast. But that didn't matter. That wasn't the important thing. Six hours and forty minutes he'd been out.