it to disappear beneath his fingers--watching his fingers, lest they disappear if he looked away.

Miss Kanton was frozen in her seat, gripping the guide-triangle until her knuckles were white spots on her hand. She looked straight ahead, afraid to look at Alpha.

They circled the asteroid; again and again they rounded it.

"They must have stalled the blast," Alpha said hoarsely. "They can't stop it. They must have put it off someway."

His words echoed within the ship above the buzzing of the rockets. Miss Kanton said nothing. Her lips moved slightly, but no sound came.

She turned to speak to Alpha, conquering her emotion, bright tears in her eyes.

The seat beside her was empty, except for a crumpled space suit that slithered to the steel deck before her dilating eyes.

Miss Kanton's hand went to her face. She screamed. It was one, brief cry of utter horror.

In the engine room Beta labored. The hoses were sucking at the fluid. The hoses were there actually to suck away the gaseous waste of the engines. Now they were sucking away the fuel with thirsty, slurping sounds, pouring it out onto the soil outside the tower.

The fuel was sinking slowly, drawing away from the sparks in the engines. The girl was nowhere around. Near the fat legs bracing the engines from the floor, the transparent sphere of a space helmet swirled and rocked with the motion of the fuel. It was the only proof that the girl had ever existed; the sole thing about her that had been real.

Beta watched the hoses and studied the transparent sphere that was floating towards him, drawn by the suction of the wide mouths of the hoses.

"You were a great girl, Katherine," he said. He sighed. He felt weariness growing inside of him.

The fuel coming down the steps into the engine room was a mere trickle. The tanks above were drained. The level of the fluid was dropping down towards his ankles.

Beta walked carefully through the fuel to the steps. He looked back, watching the hoses. Confident that they could do the job, he mounted the stairs and reached the long corridor to the rubble-blocked doorway. He left wet, oily prints behind him as he walked. He entered the radio communication room.

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