He glanced at the scope. The twenty odd crates, some of them taking up an orbital relationship with the vessel, were blips on the screen. Twisting the massometer section selector, he read off the figures. Hold One showed full cargo of inter-calc equipment. Hold Two, with its thirty bins of hematite, was intact. The third cargo compartment, containing more crated inter-calc units, was the damaged one. The massometer reading for that hold accounted for the missing weight. * * * * * "How're you doing, Brad?" the receiver rasped feebly. He recoiled at the unexpected sound. "She's still in one piece, Jim," he shouted to compensate for the strength the signal would lose in traveling the distance to the fleeing lifecraft. "Have you cleared through your second hyperjump yet?" "Getting ready to go into the third. There won't be any more communicating after that ... not with this short-range gear and your faulty transmitter. Find out the trouble yet?" Brad ignored the question. "How long, Jim?" His voice was eager. "How long before you get to port?" "Three jumps in one day. Seven more to go. That figures out to a little over two more days. I'm making better time than we expected with this peanut. Allow two more days for the slow tows to return.... Still think it'll hold together?" Brad was silent. "Brad," Jim's voice went into low gear. "I've still got enough juice to come back and pick you up. After all, one ship and one load of cargo ... it's just not worth it." Brad listened to the ominous convulsions of the ship for a moment. "Your orders are to continue to Vega IV. I'm sticking." "But, skipper! Dammit! There's always the chance of spilling through into normal! That's a torturous way to go!" Brad's lips brushed roughly against the bulkhead mike. "If I fall through it's just me, isn't it?" Although the sound level was too low, he knew there was a sigh on the other end. "Okay," the speaker whispered. "If I can't convince you...." Brad leaned against the bulkhead and shivered. He'd have to see whether he couldn't get more output from the heat converter--if he could chance going past the leaking pile again. Or _was_ it the cold that was causing him to tremble?--If he entered normal space at less than minimum breakthrough speed.... He didn't complete the distasteful mental picture. He thought of his only functioning hyperdrive tube. Its gauge showed a power level that was only high enough to boost the craft back onto the hyperspace level when it started to conform with the normal tendency to fall through. How many times the tube could be counted on to repeat the performance he couldn't guess. It might be painful if he should let the drop gain too much momentum before correcting--human beings were built to cross the barrier in nothing longer than a micro-second. But, he resolved, he would worry about that when the time came. "Why don't you let it go, Brad?" the voice leaped through the grating again.