It took only a minute to let the air out of the little scaled pressure room. Then cautiously I dropped down into it, with the interior gravity gripping me so that suddenly I was my normal weight once more. Breathless, tense, I lay flat, with my suit deflating as I stared down into the chart room. Nina and Torio were there. I could see them, but not hear them. She was in a chair, with him standing before her. And then I caught my breath. What was this? An angle of the control turret also was within my line of vision. A crimsoned figure lay there; the body of Captain Mackensie. He had finished his work; charted the course--and this was his reward. A little of the outside of the turret also was visible. It did not seem that the guard was out there now. Had he been sent away, so that Torio now might be alone with Nina? Fervently I hoped so. There was no alarm as I cautiously slid the trap in the chart room ceiling. "Oh--Oh, please--let me alone!" "But, my dear little lady, do you want me to kill Penelle? Surely you--" The snaky Torio got no further than that. I was some fifteen feet directly above him. Perhaps he was aware of my hurtling body but he had no chance to avoid it as I crashed down upon him. The work-knife in my gloved, metal-fingered hand stabbed. He went limp under me, with blood gushing from his chest where the knife had gone to its hilt. My helmet was up in the pressure room. "Nina, climb up!" I slid the little wall ladder into position for her. "Quick, now! Get into the pressure suit up there. Inflate it, and wait for me." White and grim, she obeyed wordlessly. I started her up the ladder, swung for the hidden wall safe. Would the leaden cylinder of the catalyst still be here? It was. I strapped it quickly to my belt. Then I dashed for the instrument cubby. A little explosive time-bomb.... I found one; and hurried with it into the control turret, where I placed it against the mechanisms of the Erentz current--that huge electronic stream which circulated throughout all the double-shelled plates of the vessel to absorb the inner pressure. Ten minutes? Would that give us time enough? Nina was in the pressure suit when in a minute more I reached the upper room. "Good enough, Nina. Now, the helmet! Your brother Jim is outside--safe." My heart leaped with triumph at her gasp of joy. "Oh, Fred--" "Come on, hurry." We were garbed, ready and through the outer porte in another minute or two. My hand clung to Nina's metal shoulder. "Careful, there's no gravity. Don't shove yourself off." We were like two crawling flies on the smooth outer surface of the pressure dome. Still there was no alarm. We got part way down the side. Young Blake, in the poised little volplane farther down, saw us. I waved my arm, and he shoved his tiny craft off. Like a log in water it floated out twenty feet or so, turned and came drifting diagonally back. "We'll dive for it," I murmured. "He'll pick us up." * * * * *