Rourke fingered the nick in his jaw, eyes glinting. "You're supposed to be in your cabin," he said. "Didn't I warn you we'd run into trouble?"

Shano smoked and contemplated the chunky man. Estimated his strength and youth and felt the anger and frustration mount in him. "Devil," he said.

"Devil," he said and dug his cigarette into the other's face.

He lunged then, clawing. He dug the cigarette into Rourke's flushed face, and clung to his body. Rourke howled. He fell backward to the deck, slapping at his blistered face. He thrashed around and Shano clung to him, battered, pressing the cigarette relentlessly, coughing, cursing the pain in his joints.

Shano grasped Rourke's neck with his hands. He twisted the neck with his gnarled hands. Strong hands that had worked.

He got up when Rourke stopped thrashing. The face was purple and he was dead. Shano shivered. He crouched in the passageway shivering and coughing.

A tremendous grinding sounded amid-ships. Loud rending noises of protesting metal. The ship bucked like a hooked fish. Then it was still. An empty clank echoed through the hull. The captain's voice came, almost yelling. "Emergency! Emergency! Back to your posts. Engine room—report! Engine room—"

Shano picked himself off the deck, his mind muddled. He coughed and put a cigarette to his lips, flicking a lighter disk jerkily from his pocket. He blew smoke from his nostrils and heard the renewed pounding of feet. What was going on now?

"Engine room! Your screen is dead! Switch onto loud-speaker system. Engine room!"

Giddily, Shano heard clicks and rasps and then a thick voice, atom motors whirring in the background.

"Selector's gone, sir. Direct hit. Heat ray through the deck plates. We've sealed the tear. Might repair selector in five hours."

Shano coughed and sent a burst of smoke from his mouth.

"Captain!" A rasping, grating sound ensued from a grill above Shano's head, then a disconnected voice. "Get the men out of there. It's useless. Hurry it up!" A series of clicks and the heavy voice of the chief engineer. "Captain! Somebody's smashed the selector chamber. Engine room's full of toxia gas!"

Shano jumped. He prodded the body on the deck with his toe.

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