warned him to stay in his cabin. He looked back and forth, wondering how to return.

A bell clanged.

Shano saw a cold bulb glowing down the passageway, and he shuffled hopefully toward it. The bulb moved away. He saw an indistinct figure disappear through a door marked, ENGINE ROOM.

Shano paused uncertainly at the end of the passageway. A thick cluster of vertical pipes filled the corner. He peered at the pipes and saw a gray box snuggled behind them. It had two toggle switches and a radium dial that quivered delicately.

Shano scratched his scalp as boots pounded on the decks, above and below. He listened attentively to the ship's familiar noises diminishing one by one. And finally even the pounding of feet died out; everything became still. The silence shrieked in his ears.

The ship coasted. Shano could sense it coasting. He couldn't feel it or hear it, but he knew it was sliding ghost-like through space like a submarine dead under water, slipping quietly past a listening enemy.

The ship's speaker rasped softly. "Emergency. Battle posts."

The captain's voice. Calm, brief. It sent a tremor through Shano's body. He heard a quick scuffle of feet again, running feet, directly overhead, and the captain's voice, more urgently, "Power on. They've heard us."

The words carried no accusation, but Shano realized what they meant. A slip-up. Something left running. Vibrations picked up quickly by detectors of the Uranian space fleet.

Shano coughed and heard the ship come to life around him. He pulled himself out of the spasm, cursing Pluto. Cursing his diseased, gum-clogged lungs. Cursing the Uranian fleet that was trying to prevent his going home—even to die.

This was a strange battle. Strange indeed. It was mostly silence.

Occasionally, as though from another world, came a brief, curt order. "Port guns alert." Then hush and tension.

The deck lurched and the ship swung this way and that. Maybe dodging, maybe maneuvering—Shano didn't know. He felt the deck lurch, that was all.

"Fire number seven."

He heard the weird scream of a ray gun, and felt the constricting terror that seemed to belt the ship like an iron band.

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