It was, Steve knew with the rest of the men, an imminent alarm. The machinery had not blown--yet; it might not blow--ever. It might be stopped by the Guardians before it went--or they might arrive in time to save everything but the mere hull of the ship that sped through subspace with the warp generator heading towards failure because of any one, or two, or a hundred various reasons. It was Steve's job--with the other Guardians--to save what they could--if they could--and if not, to stop the spread of raw energy. He reached his Guardian ship and settled himself into the crash pads. He pressed the button that told the squadron commander that he was ready, and his warning lamp winked into life on the broad lamp-board in the commander's ship; one more light among the rest. Then Hagen waited. Forty seconds later came the warning bell, and the squadron began to take off, ship by ship, second by second. With a precision that would have been impossible without the master control of the commander's ship, the squadron took off, and reached the speed of light in one second. Then, second by second, the velocity doubled, re-doubled, and re-re-redoubled until the stars of the nearby galaxy were flowing past them like oncoming headlights along a busy highway. [Illustration: When the warning bell came, the squadron began to take off, ship by ship, second by second, with a precision that would have been impossible without the master control of the commander's ship.] Along with the driving constants that swept them into deep space, angular vectors were applied that would match their velocity with that of the doomed spacecraft by the time they reached it. The computers in the 'constants' building had supplied the master control panel with all the data during the time between the arrival of the alarm and the departure of the squadron. Steve Hagen peered into the utter blackness of subspace, watching the space-warped cores of stars stream past, watching for the first sight of the faltering ship. It came before the squadron eventually, decelerating as hard as it could. "Made it!" came the exultant cry from the spearhead of the squadron. * * * * * The fleet divided. Rescue craft darted around the spaceliner and picked up tracers left by fleeing life-craft; they followed these to give aid to crew and passengers fleeing the imminent blowup. Tractors latched onto the spaceliner and aided the drivers to decelerate the ship, and the command came: "Goggles!" Steve snapped dark glasses down over his face just as the intolerably bright floodlamps flared. This was not to shed light over the scene; any moment now, there would be a flaring hell of raw energy. The floodlamps were to cut the total contrast between the streamers of ultra-incandescence and utter blackness of subspace. The barriers nosed forward warily, and Steve took the control of his swamper from the master and edged between two of them. They waited, waited.