How long to cut through the hull? The ship's mining equipment was on board, and the tools were self-powered. Climb into a spacesuit, empty the air from the entire storage deck, leaving the janandra imprisoned in the cargo lock ... with Maulbow incapacitated in sick bay, and Kerim back in the control compartment and also in a suit, for additional protection. Then cut ship's power to this deck to avoid complications with the _Queen's_ involved circuitry and work under space conditions--half an hour if he hurried. * * * "Shouldn't take more than another ten minutes," he informed Kerim presently over the suit's intercom. "I'm very glad to hear it, Gefty." She sounded shaky. "Anything going on in the screens?" he asked. She hesitated a little, said, "No. Not at the moment." Gefty grunted, blinked sweat from his eyes, and took hold of the handgrips of the heavy mining cutter again, turning it nose down towards the vault floor. The guide light found the point he was working on, and the slice beam stabbed out, began nibbling delicately away to extend the curving line it had eaten through the _Queen's_ thick skin. He had drawn a twenty-five foot circle around Maulbow's battered control unit and the instruments attached to it, well outside the fragile-looking safety field. The circle was broken at four points where he would plant explosives. The explosives, going off together, should shatter the connecting links with the hull and throw the machine clear. If that didn't release them immediately from its influence, he would see what putting the _Queen's_ drives into action would do. "Gefty?" Kerim's voice asked. "Uh-huh?" He could hear her swallow over the intercom. "Those lights are back now." "How many?" "Two," Kerim said. "I _think_ they're only two. They keep crossing back and forth in front of us." She laughed nervously. "It's idiotic, of course, but I do get the feeling they're looking at us." Gefty said hesitantly, "Everything's set but I need another minute or two to get this last connection whittled down a little more. If I blow the charge too soon, it mightn't take the gadget clean out of the ship." Kerim said, "I know. I'll just watch ... they just disappeared again." Her voice changed. "Now there's something else." "What's that?" "You know you said to watch the cargo lock lights on the emergency panel." "Yes." "The outer lock door has just been opened." "What!" "It must have been. The light started blinking red just now as I was looking at it." Gefty was silent a moment, his mind racing. Why would the janandra open the lock? From what Maulbow had said, it could live for a while without air, but it still could gain nothing but eventual death from leaving the ship--