* * * * * Tayne sheathed the sword. And slowly, as though he had reached some desperate decision, he turned to the control panels. But not to the ones at which he'd stood before. He touched one of a row of white studs above which were the words S-C ONLY. And a rectangle of metal hardly more than a foot in length and half as much in width slid back beneath his fingertips, exposing a compact console of control keys. _Or (2) when an insurmountable emergency should occur...._ Tayne was pressing buttons, and Doug knew that the trajectory had been broken, and that the ship was free of its autorobot and under Tayne's sole command. The manual control console. Tayne had had enough! Were he an Earthman as Doug was an Earthman--but he was not! He was a creature of pattern, and there was only the pattern to follow. And an 'insurmountable emergency' had indeed arisen. Flight with a madman who spoke of other universes, and who, by definition of orders, dare not be killed. Doug, still seated, braced his feet on the hammock's bottom edge, and checked his spring even with his muscles tensed. For Tayne turned suddenly. And the fear, the confusion were gone! "Thank you, Quadrate Blair!" he said. "Madman, I am convinced--yet brilliant to the last! I admit, I may not have thought of our personal enmity as a motive for my actions--as a motive, I mean, that would justify them!" Something turned to ice in Doug's stomach. It was going wrong, somehow. Tayne drew the sword slowly. "I shall kill you now. You see, you hated me so much that I am afraid your hatred broke its bounds. And you not only attacked me but--but I'm afraid you also attempted to take over manual control of the ship in your madness. And for that of course--" The sword was descending even as Doug launched his body from the hammock. They went down then, and the sword clattered from Tayne's grasp. The blade-edge was speckled with red, and there was a searing pain across Doug's back. But his hands were on Tayne's throat, and they were closing. And then they opened. The whistle of air into Tayne's lungs as he fought for breath and for consciousness told Doug he had only seconds before there was full life in the Quadrate's body again. But the seconds were enough, for within them, he had the sword's hilt firmly in his own hand. And then he had its tip at the Quadrate's swollen, pulsing throat. "You damn near threw me off schedule, Grand Imperial Wizard. Come on get up." Doug felt little rivulets of blood trickle down his spine. The wound still stung, but it was not deep. Slowly, Tayne rose, the sword-point beneath his chin.