"No. It's the heart of the new cosmic drive, sir. The fuels must pass through selector valves before entering the tube chambers. Filaments will operate so long as toxia gas is there to burn, and will keep trying to open the valves and compensate for fluctuating engine temperature. But the rod pins have melted down, sir--they're common tungsten steel--and when the rods pull a valve open, they slip off and drop down, useless. It's a mess. If we could only get a man in there he might lift up the dropped end of a rod and slip it into place each time it fell, and keep the valves working and feeding fuel." The speaker spluttered and Shano smoked thoughtfully, listening to the talk back and forth, between the captain and the engineer. He didn't understand it, but knew that everything was ended. They were broken down in space and would never make Earth. Those Uranian devils would come streaking back. Catch them floating, helpless, and blast them to bits. And he would never get home to die. Shano coughed, and cursed his lungs. Time was when these gum-clogged lungs had saved his life. In the Plutonian mines. Gas explosions in the tunnels. Toxia gas, seeping in, burning the men's insides. But with gum-clogged lungs he'd been able to work himself clear. Just getting sick where other men had died, their insides burned out. Shano smoked and thought. * * * * * They wouldn't even know, he told himself, squirming through the emergency exit into the engine room, and sealing it after him. And they wouldn't understand if they did. Pink mist swirled about him. Toxia gas. Shano coughed. He squinted around at the massive, incomprehensible machinery. The guts of the space ship. Then he saw the shattered, gold-gleaming cylinder, gas hissing from a fine nozzle, and filaments glowing bluish inside it, still working away. He saw five heavy Carrsteel rods hanging useless, on melted-down pins, and the slots their pronged ends hooked into. He looked at his hands, and shook his head. "One try," he said to himself. "One try, Shano. One important thing in your life. Here's your opportunity. The toxia gas will get you. It'll kill you at this concentration. But you'll last for maybe twelve hours. Another man wouldn't last a minute. Another man's lungs aren't clogged with Juno gum." He grasped a rod and lifted it, sweating under the weight, and slipped the forked end into its slot. Going home to die, he thought. Well, maybe not going home. Couldn't remember what Earth looked like anyway. What was that again? Oh yeah--just lift them up, and when they drop off, lift them up again.