"Can't you hear me, man? Snap out of it! Time is growing short. In a half hour, maybe less, we'll nose into the H-layer. And then--Please, sir!" But there was no reply. Captain McNeally looked at me uncertainly. "Are you sure, Brait?" "Positive. I forwarded a description to Bender at L.I. He said Cartaphilus has been missing for a year and a half. He fled Earth because of a scandal. It seems--" "Never mind that now." McNeally confronted the insane scientist. "Mr. Cartaphilus, you must help us out of this jam! We're not thinking only of ourselves, but of the mothers and children waiting for us on Earth. And of the future of space-travel. If the _Antigone_, the finest ship ever built, blows out in the H-layer, it will strike a heavy blow at all astronavigation. Help us, sir! For Heaven's sake--" Cartaphilus spoke suddenly, sharply. "Don't say that!" "Only Heaven can save us now," said McNeally simply, "if you won't. It's our only hope. May the Lord help us if you--" "Don't!" The strange, thin man screamed the word. Suddenly he buried his face in his hands, and his words were an incoherent babble of torment. "Don't you see what you're doing? Man, have you no pity?" He raised wide, tortured eyes. "The endlessness of time--" he whispered. "But I thought that, free of Earth, lost in the depths of space, I might at last find peace. But now you call upon me to save you in His name. "I won't do it! I won't! The power cannot force me, here in the void. Two thousand years.... No! No!" * * * * * McNeally stepped back, torn between dread and doubt. He shook his head at us. "It's no use. He's completely mad." Then Russ Bartlett cried, "Wait! _Listen!_" For Cartaphilus, his face worn and aged, had bowed his head as though surrendering to forces greater than his will-to-die. And he was droning in a drab, lack-lustre voice, "Tell the engineer to reverse the polarity of the alternate hypatomic motors. Transmit the counter electromotive force helically through the forward coils. Use full power. Keep all motors running at top speed. Cut out the intercommunicating and lighting systems; there must be no D.C. current in operation anywhere on the ship. The cross-currents will--" Chief Engineer Lester's face was a masque of blank dismay. He husked, "A hysteresis bloc! It might work. Nobody ever thought of it before." "What do you mean?" That was Cap McNeally. "His suggestion. Heterodyning the web-coils, so we'll counter the H-layer radiation with an alternating current of our own. It's just about one chance in a million!" "Then take that chance!" cried the skipper. "Try it! Do as he says. And, for God's sake, man, _hurry_!" Cartaphilus, his eyes drained of all expression, rose sluggishly. Once more he spoke, faintly. "It will work," he said. "It will work, and I have failed again. And all because I would not let Him rest...."