Black Tom's head was bent over a report sheet, his fingers were busy with a pencil. He shook his head, and Joe was motionless. Then a chuckle came from Black Tom's lips, and under cover of the sound, Joe made for the ladder leading to the water compartment. Black Tom's head lifted as if startled; his head began to turn toward the exit door. Joe went up the ladder like a frightened monkey, fairly blasted himself through the cubbyhole at the top and then rolled quietly inside. He lay there, his heart pounding with the quick exertion as he heard Black Tom's footsteps moving across the floor. He held his breath; Black Tom's grunt of puzzlement came muted to his ears. The footsteps returned to the chart table, and Joe risked a look to see Black Tom's head once more bent in study. Joe lifted himself to his feet, went over and touched the wet surface of the first of the water cylinders reverently. He walked on down the line, patting each of the huge tanks till he had reached the last. His arms reached up, his hands gripped the top of the cylinder and the sinewy muscles in his back and arms lifted himself to the top of it. Then he slid down from the top into the wedge shaped space between the circumference of the tank and the bulwark of the wall. This was sanctuary, Joe thought. Like a cave in the forest when the wolf-pack keened out their howls for your blood. Only different. For it was your friends who wanted to kill you. In the darkness, Joe's teeth gleamed in a quick smile. Then Joe fell asleep. * * * * * Arden was weary when he met John Bairn coming down from his time of duty in the pilot cubicle. "He's gone," Arden said. "Just as if he had stepped out into space. Now we're worse off than ever." Bairn nodded, said: "I get it. If he's on this ship, he'll have to come in for food; we won't know what he's touched. Maybe one of the more susceptible among us with a scratch may touch something he had and won't know. The infected one will pass like the touch of death among us." Arden said: "Everything we know he might have touched has been destroyed or disinfected, but there may have been something we missed. Damn him!" Arden's voice was flat, hopeless. "It's hard to imagine Joe as the destroyer he is. I talked to him by the hour. I liked him; and even now, when I know what a potential of death he is--that's what makes me so damn mad." "Tomorrow," Arden said abruptly. "Tomorrow we'll know if this cruise is in vain." Bairn amended it: "Tomorrow, we land on Venus; if the stuff's there, okay. If it isn't, we won't have to worry about Joe Wilding any more." * * * * * Joe didn't know what time it was when it happened. But he knew the first leg of the journey was over. That steady thrumming of the motors that had worked its way into his body so that it had become a part of him drew away gradually and left a sense of emptiness behind.