"They're draining somewhere!" Alpha said.

"Down, naturally!" the girl-dupe said. "The engine room covers the whole underground floor! If--"

"If the sparks from the engines touch that fuel--!" Beta cried. He turned to the door and ran from the room with the others on his heels.

The elevator dropped them to the lower floor. The corridor was filled knee-deep with a pale, bluish fluid--explosive fuel! It poured like a blue waterfall down the steps leading to the engines. Alpha opened the doors of the elevator and the syrupy liquid flooded in upon him. He waded into it and to the steps where he stumbled to the lower floor. The others were right behind him.

"What about friction?" Miss Kanton asked, conscious of the metal studs of her suit clicking against each other.

"Have to chance it," Beta snapped.

They went into the engine room, wading carefully through the azure fluid. In the main room they saw the fuel slowly creeping up the fat legs of the whirring engines towards the network of sparks that could be seen through the ventilator grills.

"Isn't there any way to shut them off?" Miss Kanton gasped.

Alpha shook his head grimly.

"No. All controls are sealed. Can only be manipulated by Cooperation Engineers," he said.

"Six inches more," Miss Kanton said, looking at the fuel flowing beneath the engine.

"We'd best get out of here fast!" Alpha said. "In ten minutes the Corporation is out one asteroid."

They were running up the stairs, pushing into the elevator. Beta shoved the door slowly against the pressure of the blue syrup. He shot the car back to the ground level. Here there was no sign of the fuel which was pouring down a stairs around a turn in the corridor. They ran down the hall to the door, the Tindars each gripping the arm of a Kanton."Wait!" Miss Kanton was crying, "wait! The ship. We've only got one! We can only take two persons back. And you ... which of you...." She stopped, aghast and panting, looking from Alpha to Beta. The Tindars stiffened and gasped as the full implication of what she meant hit them.

"Take the ship!" Miss 

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