"You _would_ put it that way," sneered Truesdale; "you're homicidal at heart anyway!" He turned on Donna, wiping perspiration from his forehead. "Are you going to let him do it?" he shrilled. "Are you going to help him commit such a crime?" The girl stared at him with a worried look in her blue eyes but said nothing. "Come on, Truesdale," said Phillips, making an effort at a peaceful, persuasive tone. "It will be either their lives or ours if they spot us--and millions more if they get by. They'll be too desperate to think of us. Do you want to die?" The instant he spoke the last words, he remembered the other's record and wished he had kept quiet. He saw, a strange, wild expression creep over Truesdale's features. It changed into a look of hateful cunning as the youth, began to sidle toward the door. "_I'm_ not afraid to die!" he boasted in a low-pitched but tense voice. "But how about you, Phillips? How about the big, brutal space engineer who is proud of smashing men's skulls against steel walls, who would like nothing better than to blow up a shipload of innocent people. How do you really know they're dangerous? But you don't care, do you?" "Truesdale!" snapped Phillips. "Calm down!" "I'll calm you down with me!" shouted the other hysterically. "I'll _show_ you who's afraid to die!" He ducked through the door toward which he had been backing. Phillips lunged after him, just barely missing a grip. "On your toes!" he shouted over his shoulder to Donna, and turned on all jets. But Truesdale, driven by his peculiar fury, not only stayed ahead as they raced along the corridor, but actually gained. He was fifteen or twenty feet out in front as they reached the midway point. Phillips, expecting him to take refuge in the rocket room, was completely fooled when Truesdale leaped for the ladder in the vertical well. He stumbled, and grabbed a handrail to stop himself. The other was swarming upward. Phillips sprang to follow. Hardly had he climbed half a dozen rungs, however, than he saw he was outdistanced. Truesdale's feet were already disappearing beyond the hatchway. Phillips waited for the airtight door to slam shut. It remained open.... Then a thrill of instinctive fear shot through him as he thought of what Truesdale might do--probably was _doing_ at that very instant! [Illustration: 4] Throwing his feet clear of the rungs, he plunged back toward the deck, guided only by his hands brushing the sides of the ladder. As Phillips reached the junction of the passages, he kicked desperately away from the ladder. He landed with a thump that would have hurt had he been in a calmer state. Rolling over toward the control room, he came to his feet in time to glimpse Donna looking out the doorway before a jarring shock floored him again.