to the center of the corridor, where it joined a heavy central pillar plentifully supplied with grips for climbing. Everything was made of the copperlike material, and the only light came from the orange-glow tubes set in the corners of the corridor.

Dr. Little maintained his position for several minutes, looking and listening; but no sound reached his ears, and he could perceive nothing through the gratings which covered the other hatchways. He also gave a few moments' attention to the lock on his own grating, which evidently was operated from either side; but it was designed to be opened by a complicated key, and the doctor had no instruments for examining its interior. With a sigh he hooked one arm about a bar of the grating and relaxed, trying to reason out the chain of events which had led up to these peculiar circumstances.

The _Gomeisa_ had been a heavy cruiser, quite capable of putting up a stiff defense to any conceivable attack. Certainly no assault could have been so sudden and complete that the enemy would be in a position to use hand weapons on the crew before an alarm was raised--the idea was absurd; and fixed mount projectors of any type would have left more of a mark on the doctor than he could find at this moment. Furthermore, the ship had been, at the last time of which Little had clear recollection, crossing the relatively empty gulf between the Galaxy proper and the Greater Magellanic Cloud--a most unpropitious place for a surprise attack. The star density in that region is of the order of one per eight thousand cubic parsecs, leaving a practically clear field for detector operations. No, an attack did not seem possible; and yet Little had been deprived of consciousness without warning, had been removed from the _Gomeisa_ in that state, and had awakened within a sleeping bag which showed too plainly the fact that part, at least, of the cruiser had been open to space for some time.Was he in a base on some planet of one of those few stars of the "desert," or in some ship of unheard-of design? His weightlessness disposed of the first idea before it was formulated; and the doctor glanced at his belt. Through the glass window in its case, he could see the filament of his personal equalizer glowing faintly; he was in a ship, in second-order flight, and the little device had automatically taken on the task of balancing the drive forces which would, without it, act unequally on each element in his body. As a further check, he felt in his pocket and drew out two coins, one of copper and one of silver. He held them nearly together some distance from his body, released them carefully so as not to give them velocities of their own, and 

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