longer, and then unsnapped the top fasteners of the bag. The grille interested him, and he was becoming more and more puzzled as to his whereabouts. He had no recollection of any unusual events; he had been checking over the medical stores, he was sure, but he couldn't recall retiring to his room afterward. What had put him to sleep? And where had he awakened?

He grasped the top of the bag and peeled it off, being careful to keep hold of it. He started to roll it up and paused in astonishment. A cloud of dust, fine as smoke, was oozing from the fibers of the cloth with each motion, and hanging about the bag like an atmosphere. He sniffed at it cautiously and started coughing; the stuff was dry, and tickled his throat unpleasantly. There could be only one explanation; the bag had been drifting in open space for a length of time sufficient to evaporate every trace of moisture from its fibers. He unrolled it again and looked at the stenciled number--GOA-III-NA12-422. The first three groups confirmed his original belief that the bag had belonged to the _Gomeisa_; the last was a personal number indicating the identity of the former owner, but Little could not remember whose number it was. The fact that it had been exposed to the void was not reassuring.

Dismissing that phase of the problem for the moment, the doctor rolled the bag into a tight bundle. He was drifting weightless midway between ceiling and floor, almost in the center of the room; the hatchway was in one of the six corners of the ceiling. Little hurled the bundle in the opposite direction. It struck the far corner and rebounded without much energy; air friction brought it to a halt a few feet from the wall. The doctor drifted more slowly in the direction of the grating. His throw had been accurate enough to send him within reach of it; he caught hold of one of the bars and drew himself as close as possible.

Any lingering doubt that might have remained in his still befuddled brain as to whether or not he were still on board the _Gomeisa_ was driven away as he caught his first glimpse through the grille. It opened--or would have opened had it been unlocked--onto a corridor which extended in two directions as far as the doctor's limited view could reach. The hallway was about thirty feet square, but there its orthodox characteristics terminated. It had been built with a sublime disregard for any possible preferred "up" or "down" direction. Hatches opened into all four sides; those opposite Little's station were circular, like his own, while those in the "side" walls were rectangular. From a point beside each opening, a solidly braced metal ladder extended 

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