"Stay with Lieutenant Corriston until I get back," Clement said. "He's not to leave. He understands that." He turned back to Corriston. "I'm afraid you'll have to consider yourself still under guard, Lieutenant. I have only your word that you found Miss Ramsey. I believe you, but there are some regulations even I can't waive." "It's all right," Corriston said. "I won't attempt to leave. But please hurry, sir." Commander Clement hesitated, then said with a smile: "I knew about the guard you knocked out, Lieutenant. You're a very hot-headed young man. That's _really_ a court-martial offense, but perhaps we can smooth it over if you're telling the truth now. You were in the position of a man imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit. If he can prove his innocence, the law is very lenient. He can escape and still get a full pardon, even a pardon with apologies. It's a different matter, of course if he _kills_ a guard to escape. You didn't." Corriston was tempted to say, "I think perhaps I tried to, sir," but thought better of it. He'd ask Clement later why the guards who had been sent down into the Selector compartment had failed to find him. It wasn't important enough now to waste a second thought on, but just out of curiosity he would ask. He didn't have to. After Clement had departed the executive officer told him. "They made a pretty thorough search for you," he said. "Or so they claimed. But they had been drinking heavily--every one of them. Maintaining discipline can be a terrible headache at times. There's a lot of objectivity about the commander and he doesn't try to crack down too hard. He knows what it means to be out here for months with nothing to break the monotony. Hell, if we could send for our wives more often it wouldn't be so bad." Corriston's palms were cold. He stood very still, wondering how long it would take the commander to return with the news he wanted to hear. "The question is whether life is really worth living without a woman to talk to," the executive officer went on. "Just to lie relaxed and watch a pretty girl move slowly around a room. It does something for you." Corriston wished the man would keep quiet. Under ordinary circumstances he could have sympathized heartily. He couldn't now. There was only one girl he wanted to see walk around a room, and she might just as well have been at the opposite end of space. She wasn't walking around a room now. She was lying helplessly sprawled out, waiting for rescue to come. It had to come soon, it had to. The commander wouldn't just go down alone after her. He'd be accompanied by a half-dozen executive officers who would know exactly how to bundle her into a stretcher and carry her to the sick bay. But what if a killer just happened to be crouching in one of the corridors, waiting for the stretcher to pass? A killer with a poisoned barb....