"We've hit the imaginary Thakura Ripples," Evans said savagely, "and they're tearing us apart!" The plump soft body of Burl Jasperson seemed to deflate. The truculence drained from his face, leaving his skin a dirty white as he whispered, "Then the Thakura Ripples _are_ real? And we're in danger?" The Captain's laugh was bitter. "What do _you_ think? Don't you want to give me the benefit of your advice now?" Again the door burst open, and a crewman ran in. "Captain Evans, sir. Piles Fourteen and Fifteen have started to heat. They're already at critical level." "Dump them!" The phone buzzed, and Evans listened with a face which was turning a graveyard gray. "If you can hold them down, keep them. If they pass the critical point, shoot them away." Turning, he looked straight into the dilated eyes of Jasperson, and spoke as if every word were a knife thrusting into the pudgy body. "Every one of the Piles is starting to heat. Every last one. One life boat is lost. That means fifteen hundred people to be crowded into five little boats!" "What are you going to do?" croaked the little man. "I've already reduced speed. I've sent out and am still sending out calls for help, over phase wave. We'll shift to normal space, and we'll launch the lifeboats as soon as they can be provisioned and loaded. And then we'll pray. And now, Burl Jasperson, how do you like the Thakura Ripples?" Bracing himself against the desk, Burl tried to smile. "If there's any way I can help, of course, just let me know." With a feeble attempt at jauntiness, he staggered out of the cabin. * * * * * Opening the long-closed shutter of the observation port, Captain Evans could see the suns of normal space glittering in the blackness about the ship, unfamiliar and alien. Before the shift to normal space he had sent out SOS calls throughout the galaxy, but he had not waited for any replies before shifting. He could not know whether the calls had been heard, or even whether there were any ships close enough to send help after hearing the calls. He hoped, with all his being, that they had come out in a region of inhabited planet systems, in a regular shipping lane, so that his passengers could be picked up and taken to port--any port. He kept his line open to Operations, and every minute or so Wyman spoke to him, giving the data on the climbing piles. Ten had been jettisoned in hyperspace, and so had Fourteen and Fifteen. Since their shift to normal space, it had been necessary also to detach the entire bank of Nineteen, Twenty, and Twenty-one, whose index had risen at a terrifying rate. Wyman's voice spoke in his ear. "One, Two, and Three are climbing fast, sir." "Shoot them away!" "No good, sir. I've tried. The release mechanism has fused, and those three Piles are welded to the ship!"