In a very small fraction of a second Carlyle Deston moved--and fast. Seizing Barbara by an arm, he leaped out of bed with her. "We're abandoning ship--get into this suit--quick!" "But what ... but I've _got_ to dress!" "No time! Snap it up!" He practically hurled her into her suit; clamped her helmet tight. Then he leaped into his own. "Skipper!" he snapped into the suit's microphone. "Deston. Emergency! Abandon ship!" The alarm bells clanged once; the big red lights flashed once; the sirens barely started to growl, then quit. The whole vast fabric of the ship trembled and shuddered and shook as though it were being mauled by a thousand impossibly gigantic hammers. Deston did not know and never did find out whether it was his captain or an automatic that touched off the alarm. Whichever it was, the disaster happened so fast that practically no warning at all was given. And out in the corridor: "Come on, girl--sprint!" He put his arm under hers and urged her along. She did her best, but in comparison with his trained performance her best wasn't good. "I've never been checked out on sprinting in spacesuits!" she gasped. "Let go of me and go on ahead. I'll follow----" Everything went out. Lights, gravity, air-circulation--everything. "You haven't been checked out on free fall, either. Hang onto this tool-hanger here on my belt and we'll travel." [Illustration] "Where to?" she asked, hurtling through the air much faster than she had ever gone on foot. "Baby Two--that is, Lifecraft Number Two--my crash assignment. Good thing I was down here in the Middle; I'd never have made it from up Top. Next corridor left, I think." Then, as the light of his headlamp showed numbers on the wall: "Yes. Square left. I'll swing you." He swung her and they shot to the end of the passage. He kicked a lever and the lifecraft's port swung open--to reveal a blaze of light and a startled, gray-haired man. "What happened.... What hap ...?" the man began. "Wrecked. We've had it. We're abandoning ship. Get into that cubby over there, shut the door tight behind you, and _stay there_!" "But can't I do something to help?" "Without a suit and not knowing how to use one? You'd get burned to a cinder. Get in there--and _jump_!" The oldster jumped and Deston turned to his wife. "Stay here at the port, Bobby. Wrap one leg around that lever, to anchor you. What does your telltale read? That gauge there--your radiation meter. It reads twenty, same as mine. Just pink, so we've got a minute or so. I'll roust out some passengers and toss 'em to you--you toss 'em along in there. Can do?" She was white and trembling; she was very evidently on the verge of being violently sick; but she was far from being out of control. "Can do, sir." "Good girl, sweetheart. Hang on one minute more and we'll have gravity and you'll be O. K."