subsonic generator and reversed it. Have to do it that way, gradually, or the shock kills you. Took quite a while. I hid the cage down in the cargo hanger, and I stay down there and guarded it most of the time. They’ve searched almost everywhere, but I keep moving it from place to place. If you want to know how I got in good with the duty watch down there, it cost me a hundred platinum credits. And don’t ask me how I got the credits. You sure you’re all right now?”

“Guess so. Little weak. What are you going to do now?”

“This is the climax of the ‘Hounds of the Void’ picture,” said Red. “The hero is going to get you out of here. I’m going to wreck the Sol. In the confusion we can escape.”

“Wreck the—!” Ward subsided in the darkness, resigned.

“It’s simple, Doc. I’m going to destroy the forward fuel-injectors. The braking rockets won’t work then, and everybody aboard will have to bail out in air-sleds. They’ll never notice us in all the bedlam. We hope.”

“But the cage of mercenaries...?”

“Take that along in an air-sled. We won’t be the only ones that’ll grab up some excess luggage.”

“But Red,” whispered Ward. “You can’t do that until we get inside Mars gravity. By that time the Executive Officer will start working on me again. I couldn’t stand another dosage, Red.”

That thin cold laugh again. Ward didn’t know why he shuddered. “These psychocells fool your duration sense, Doc. We’re already inside Mars gravity. You been in there a long time. Here’s some food concentrate. Now rest up and be ready. See you.”

Later, Ward’s tautly waiting senses were jarred by a thunderous explosion. For a moment it seemed the whole ship would fall apart as the liquid oxygen and its catalyst power units beneath the control turret went off. Even inside the padded walls of his psychocell, Ward could hear the repercussions of the dreadful explosions—cries and screams of fear, horror, confusion, mass hysteria. From an inter-ship audio in the corridor outside his cell door, he heard the Captain’s frantic desperate tone, the voice of a man unused to emergencies.

“What has happened down there, Thomas?”

“Forward fuel-injectors completely destroyed, sir. Braking rockets beyond repair.”

Panic was ill-concealed in the Captain’s voice now. “Break out 

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