After several agonizing minutes, a voice came over the radio. It was Russell Clyde's and it was excited and angry. "Hold on out there as long as you can! Lockhart's been knocked unconscious! We're trying to get into the engine room and take back control!" Perplexed, Burl shouted, "Who's in the engine room? Take control from whom?" There was another pause as he heard sounds of pounding, as if someone were trying to hammer open a metal panel. Then Russ's voice came on again. "Its Boulton! He came to suddenly, sneaked up here, knocked out the commander, and climbed up into the Zeta-ring chamber! Caton was down below--and Boulton's locked the trap door and is running the drive. He's reversed our route, away from Jupiter, and into outer space! Boulton's apparently gone crazy! And we can't get in to stop him!" Burl, suspended over an abyss, clung to the end of the taut, thin nylon line, as the ship pulled him helplessly along into the uncharted depths of infinity, with a mad-man at the controls. Chapter 13. _The Pole of Callisto_ Burl surveyed his position. Judging from the apparent weight of his body, Boulton was decelerating the ship at a little less than one gravity. The nylon cord was hooked into a bolt near the center of the ship. It would be possible for Burl to climb up it and reach a firmer grip on the outside shell. There was no time to be lost. An increase in the ship's speed might increase his weight several times over. He began to climb back, reeling in the rope, pulling himself up hand over hand, just as he had done many times in the gymnasium of his high school back home. Halfway up, Clyde's voice came on his helmet phones. "Will all members of the crew report their present positions to me? Haines?" He called each man's name, beginning with the three outside. Haines and Ferrati were clinging to the surface, on the far--now forward--end of the ship. The rest of the crew was somewhere in the living sphere. Lockhart was still unconscious. Burl could hear the faint sounds of a discussion in the control room, and also thumps as Caton and Shea continued to try to break open the entry to the generator chambers. Then Russ spoke again. "Burl, it looks as if you're elected. You seem to be the only one in the right place. There's a hatchway into the nose of the ship from the outside. It's just below the central circle. Can you see it? How close are you to it?" Burl was almost at the surface now. The circular inset ring that marked the hatchway entry port was a few feet from where his rope was hooked. He described it to Russ. "Can you reach it without losing your grip? If you can, do you think you can open it?" came the radio voice quickly. Burl reached the surface and grasped the hook. He studied the circular panel carefully. "I can reach it all right. There's a holder hook alongside it. But what will I do when I get there?"