The heat in the Aphrodite's bridge was unbearable. The thermometer showed 145° and it seemed to Strike that Hell must be cool by comparison.
Ivy fought her reeling senses and the bucking ship as the slack came out of the cable. Blackness was flickering at the edges of her field of vision. She could scarcely lift her hand to the red-sealed circuit rheostat. Shudderingly, she made the effort ... and failed. Conscious, but too spent to move, she collapsed over the blistering hot instrument panel.
"Ivy!" Strike was beside her, cradling her head in his arm.
"I ... I ... can't make it ... Strike. You'll ... have to run ... the show ... after ... all."
Strike laid her gently in an acceleration chair and turned toward the control panel. His head was throbbing painfully as he broke the seal on the surge-circuit.
Slowly he turned the rheostat. Relays chattered. From deep within old Lover-Girl's vitals came a low whine. He fed more power into the circuit. Cadmium rods slipped into lead sheaths decks below in the tube-rooms. The whining rose in pitch. The spinning of the ships in space slowed. Stopped. With painful deliberation, they swung into line.
More power. The whine changed to a shriek. A banshee wail.
Cob's voice came through the squawk-box, soberly. "Strike, Celia's fainted down here. We can't take much more of this heat."
"We're trying, Cob!" shouted Strike over the whine of the circuit. The gauges showed the accumulators full. "Now!" He spun the rheostat to the stops, and black space burst over his brain....