“It looks perfect to me. We’ll let ’em enjoy life for ten days, right where they are now. Hear that, Ryder?” “Yes, you pot-bellied. . . .” The fat man snapped a switch. It is not necessary to go into the details of the imprisonment. Doggedly and skillfully though he tried, Ryder could open up no avenue of escape or of communication; and Jacqueline, facing the inevitability of death, steadied down to meet it. She was a woman. In minor crises she had shrieked and had hidden her face and had fainted: but in this ultimate one she drew from the depths of her woman’s soul not only the power to overcome her own weakness, but also an extra something with which to sustain and fortify her man. _Chapter 4_ ▂▂▂▂▂▂“STORM” CLOUD ON DEKA IN THE VORTEX CONTROL LABORATORY on Tellus, Cloud had just gone into Philip Strong’s office. “No trouble?” the Lensman asked, after greetings had been exchanged. “Uh-huh. Simple as blowing out a match. You quit worrying about me long ago, didn’t you?” “Pretty much, except for the impossibility of training anybody else to do it. We’re still working on that angle, though. You’re looking fit.” He was. He carried no scars—the Phillips treatment had taken care of that. His face looked young and keen; his hard-schooled, resilient body was in surprisingly fine condition for that of a man crowding forty so nearly. He no longer wore his psychic trauma visibly; it no longer obtruded itself between him and those with whom he worked; but in his own mind he was _sure_ that it still was, and always would be, there. But the Lensman, studying him narrowly—and, if the truth must be known, using his Lens as well—was _not_ sure, and was well content. “Not bad for an old man, Phil. I could whip a wildcat, and spot him one bite and two scratches. But what I came in here for, as you may have suspected, is—where do I go from here? Spica or Rigel or Canopus? They’re the worst, aren’t they?” “Rigel’s is probably the worst in property damage and urgency. Before we decide, though, I wish you’d take a good look at this data from Dekanore III. See if you see what I do.” “Huh? Dekanore III?” Cloud was surprised. “No trouble there, is there? They’ve only got one, and it’s ’way down in Class Z somewhere.” “Two now. It’s the new one I’m talking about. It’s acting funny—_damned_ funny.” Cloud went through the data, brow furrowed in concentration; then sketched three charts and frowned. “I see what you mean. ‘_Damned_ funny’ is right. The toxicity is too steady, but at the same time the composition of the effluvium is too varied. Inconsistent. However, there’s no real attempt at a gamma analysis—nowhere near enough data for one—this _could_ be right; they’re so utterly unpredictable. The observers were inexperienced, I take it, with medical and chemical bias?” “Check. That’s the way I read it.”