IMAGE OF SPLENDOR By LU KELLA _From Venus to Earth, and all the way between, it was a hell of a world for men ... and Apprentice Burnerman O'Rielly particularly._ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Summer 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The intercom roared fit to blow O'Rielly back to Venus. "Burner Four!" "On my way, sir!" At the first flash of red on the bank of meters Apprentice Burnerman O'Rielly had slammed the safety helmet on his head; he was already throwing open the lock to the burner room. The hot, throbbing rumble whipped around him and near crushed his breath away. Power! Power of the universe trapped here and ready to destroy its captors given one chance! Swiftly O'Rielly unlocked the controls and reset them. The throbbing rumble changed tone. Old Callahan's voice crackled now through the helmet's ear contact. "Well, Mr. O'Rielly?" "Fusion control two points low, sir." O'Rielly wondered had Callahan passed out, was so long before the old Burner Chief demanded hoarsely, "Didn't you lock them controls before blast-off?" "If every control hadn't been locked in correct setting," O'Rielly answered from his own angry bewilderment, "the error would have registered before blast-off--wouldn't it, sir?" "So a control reset itself in flight, hey?" "I don't know yet, sir." "Well, Mr. O'Rielly, you better know before we orbit Earth!" The icy knot in O'Rielly's stomach jerked tighter. A dozen burners on this ship; why did something crazy have to happen to O'Rielly's? In a hundred years, so the instructors--brisk females all--had told O'Rielly in pre-flight school, no control had ever been known to slip. But one had moved here. Not enough to cause serious trouble this far out from Earth. On blast-down, though, with one jet below peak, the uneven thrust could throw the ship, crash it, the whole lovely thing and all aboard gone in a churning cloud. Sweat pouring off him, O'Rielly prowled around his burner. Design of the thing had been bossed by dames of course; what on Earth wasn't any more? Anyway, nobody could get to a burner except through its watch room. Anyone entered or left there, a bell clanged, lights flashed and a meter registered beside the Burnerman's bunk and on the Burner Chief's console up in the flight room full of beautifully efficient officers. Ever since Venus blast-off O'Rielly had been in Four's watch room. Nobody had passed through. O'Rielly knew it. Callahan knew it. By now the Old Woman herself, Captain Millicent Hatwoody, had probably inquired what was in charge of Burner Four.