I was at last aware that I was not dead, by the dim feeling that my head was throbbing. I was lying on something soft. Voices were here; the muffled, blended murmur of men's voices. At first they seemed very faint and far away. Then, as my returning senses clarified a little more, I knew that the voices were close to me. I opened my eyes at last to find myself lying on a blanket on the chart room floor. In a chair Nina was huddled, mutely staring with wide, terrified eyes to where at his chart-table Captain Mackensie was slumped, sullenly staring at the celestial diagrams spread before him. The sleek, ironic figure of Torio was beside him, his slim gray hand gesturing at the charts. "We are now just about here, Captain?" "Yes," Mackensie growled. "Then we want a computation of the swiftest course, from here to Venus. You will figure it out. Tell us the gravity plate combination." I could feel that blood was stiffly matting the hair at the back of my head, a ragged scalp wound there. I was bathed in cold sweat; weak, so dizzy still that the eerie chart room swam before me. But my strength slowly was returning. How much time had passed? Considerable, I judged, from that blood so stiffly dry in my hair. With a fumbling hand I felt of my clothes. All my instruments and weapons had been taken. Then I saw, in another chair, the huge slumped figure of Mokk, his massive legs crossed at ease. On his knees his hand held a gun alert. The room light fell on his heavy face. It bore an expression of grim irony, as his dark eyes, watchful, roved the room. "The segment of a parabola, Captain," the soft voice of Torio was saying. "Would that be most swift? Remember, as we turn in past the Earth, we go no closer than forty thousand miles." "You're fools," Mackensie muttered. "This voyage will take a month or more." "Why not?" "The alarm will be out for us. The Interplanetary Patrol will pick us up." "Let us hope not, Captain. You and Miss Nina would be the first to die. But there is not too much danger, I think. The modern electro-telescopes are very wonderful, but there is none, at forty thousand miles, powerful enough to pick up so small a speck of floating dust as the _X-87_. Or at least, not to identify it." "I wouldn't be too sure, Torio. And at best, your food will give out." "We will hope not," Torio smiled. His voice turned brisk. "Chart your course, Captain. Remember, we kept you alive just for this duty." Nina said suddenly, "This silence everywhere about the ship--where are the passengers?" Torio turned smilingly to her. "Why, little lady, didn't you know? We gave them pressure suits and put them out the keel porte. Have no fear, they'll drift down safely. Some of the suits are powered. If they're clever they'll get back to Earth." As though this were an old-fashioned surface vessel--giving the passengers life preservers and tossing them into the middle of an ocean.