"_I release you from your second promise, Captain Carse. No doubt what happened was beyond your control.... I will soon be dead. Although there is still nourishment in my liquid, I grow weaker already. I am dying...._" Harshly, the Hawk asked a final question into the grille: "Within what time will you retain the vitality necessary to undergo the initial steps of the transplanting operations? Do you know?" Dr. Ku raised his head at this, though he seemed only mildly interested in what the reply would be. "_I think for two of the remaining three hours._" "All right!" said Hawk Carse decisively. He threw off the case's switches. "Dr. Ku," he said, "you've only succeeded in accelerating things. Now for speed! Friday, we're taking this asteroid to Eliot Leithgow's laboratory. Go see that the port-lock doors are closed tight, then you and Wilson hurry back here! Fast! Run!" CHAPTER VII _To the Laboratory_ When the Negro returned, panting, with Ban Wilson, it was to discover Carse in the control room of the asteroid. He was studying the multifarious devices and instruments: and they, seeing his face so set in concentration, did not disturb him, but went over to where Dr. Ku Sui sat in a chair, and posted themselves behind it. The apparatus in the control room resembled that of any modern space-ship of its time, except that there were extra pieces of unguessed function. Directly in front of Carse was the directional space-stick above its complicated mechanism: above his eyes was the wide six-part visi-screen, which in space would record the whole "sphere" of the heavens: while to his right was the chief control board, a smooth black surface studded with squads of vari-colored buttons and lights, These were the essentials, familiar to any ship navigator; but they were here awesome, for they controlled not the one or two hundred feet of an ordinary craft, but twenty miles of this space-ship of rock. "Yes ... yes...." Carse murmured presently out of his study, then turned and for the first time appeared to notice Friday and Ban. He gave orders. "Eclipse, you see the radio over there? Get Master Leithgow on it for me--protected beam. Ban, you bind Dr. Ku Sui in that chair, please." Wilson was surprised. "Bind him? Isn't he going to run this thing?" "No." "_You're_ going to, Carse?" "Yes. I don't quite trust Dr. Ku. The asteroid's controlled on the same principles as a space-ship: I'll manage. Please hurry, Ban." "Cap'n., suh! Already got the Master Scientist!" called Friday from the radio panel. The Hawk strode swiftly to it and clamped the individual receivers over his ears. "M. S.?" he asked into the microphone. "You're there?" "Yes. Carse? What's happened?"