From his place in the lifeboat, Second Officer Charlie Guhn had heard no sound for several hours. He felt cramped in a gray microcosm where it was hopeless to escape. His mind turned to the cause of the skags' revivification; it was his knowledge of physics that provided him the correct answers. The transparent shells surrounding the skags were of time-impervious materials. Upon entering minus point, the creatures retrograded in time to a point previous to their suspended animation. What did they want? What did they plan? Without these answers, Guhn had no means to deal with them. Rather than dispatch the lifeboat, the deck officer resolved to attempt snapping the entire vessel back into normal space. He lowered himself to the foc'sle quarters. Here, the bodies of six crewmen neatly piled together stunned his eyes. At first, he supposed they were dead but a confirmatory touch of their flesh showed they were not. Tortured faces stared at him, as if trying to project a message. Guhn stole along the portside catwalk to the engine rooms. Finding no one, he mounted to the deck. Upon hearing the heavy tread of stumbling feet, he flattened himself against a bulkhead niche and waited. Suddenly, words roared out in the still passageway, sung in a strong-timbered brogue: "_Oh, our officers are eager And our crew is full of fight! And we're blastin' off for Vega Where we'll drink and fight all night!_" It was the captain's voice, bursting with life and very merry. The chant was taken up by another voice, a throbbing metallic speaker with slurred tones: "_Cause we've got to get her o-o-over, O-o-over that hyper hooomp!_" Holding his body flat in the niche, Charlie Guhn saw the skipper walk by, keeping time to his own melody by waving his massive arms. Abreast of him reeled a skag, drenched with narcol fumes. Guhn stepped out behind them, gripping the trigger of the force band pistol. "Captain Warren! Step aside." The skipper wheeled and his face flooded crimson: "Mr. Guhn, may I ask what you're doing off your watch?" "Sir, that's a skag. They've taken over the ship." "You're hysterical, Mr. Guhn. Damned right he's a skag. Been a skag for a million years. You hear that? Best dream I've ever had. We're going to get him back to Rigel ... next trip out. Drinks like a blasted fish, the fellow does." Incredulity fought fear in Charles Guhn's brain, until the alternate waves of emotion caused his collapse. Capt. Jock Warren bent over and raised him. The two men's faces came close together. The skipper's eye closed slowly, once, twice: "We'll be all right if the juice holds out." The skag bent over too in an inebriated effort to assist. Then, the skipper and his million-year-old companion locked arms and hoisted the flask of narcol. * * * * * _From Charlie Guhn's Log_: