The corridor was strangely silent now that the vast throb of the converters no longer boomed along it. There was a dim clatter of men working in the after section of the ship, but Ray turned to the mid-section well and slid down to the engine room. The auxiliary generator was whining briskly, but the main converters were in bad shape. Blue, acrid smoke poured from the inspection plates, hazed in the glaring lamplight, and there was a stinging odor of extinguisher gases. McVane was lying on the metal floor. Ray dragged him to the well and put him on the elevator. The engineer wasn't badly hurt, only a nasty cut on the head. In the upper passage he halted Williams and several of the crew. "Where's your first aid kit?" he demanded. "Sorry, Sir." Williams grinned. "Captain ordered us on another job. The kit's aft." Swearing, Ray hurried to the after section and retrieved the medical supplies. Back in the corridor, he decided to let the girl look after McVane. She might as well be of some use. He dragged McVane to the cabin and unlocked the door. The girl inside almost bowled him over in a frantic attempt to escape. "Here, quiet down!" He held the struggling figure, enjoying a brief moment of her nearness. "The scrap is over. You're perfectly safe." "I don't care about that!" the girl flamed. "What are you doing to my friends?" "Nothing." He turned her loose reluctantly. "Here, take care of McVane." Watching her cautiously, he dragged the engineer inside. "Let me out!" She tried to squeeze past him. "They're doing awful things!" "Calm down." He frowned uneasily. "You look after McVane. I'll take a look at your friends." Despite her protests he locked her in again, then impatiently hurried to the well to slide down and turn into the hold. Six of the crew were clustered by the cage which held the Mutes. "What--" Then he saw what had happened. The sight made him sick. The Mutes lay in grotesque heaps. Dead. They had been rayed! "Who ordered this?" he demanded thickly. His mouth felt dry. His stomach was tying itself into knots. Williams' swarthy face turned his way. "Campora said it was the captain's orders." The man spat deliberately. "A damned good idea, too, unloading them!" IV Abruptly Ray turned and ran for the upper deck. He burst into the control room. Lodar turned from the chart file. The captain's face was white. His eyes burned starkly. "So--you know they're dead." His voice was expressionless. "Are they any worse off dead than in a zoo?" "You ordered those Mutes killed!" Lodar made a hopeless gesture. "If we're intercepted, and have to fight, we'll all be killed, including the Mutes. So we get rid of them. We're clean, we go to Earth!" "Cold-blooded murder!" Ray gritted. "A cowardly--" "Stop it!" Lodar's voice cracked. "They're not human. Getting hysterical won't bring them back. Forget it. We're not playing ring-around-the-rosy!"