Miles turned to Tom. He ripped off his mask and with his free hand closed the air-lock portal.
"You fooled Brett, but you didn't fool me, Corbett." He laughed. "It takes a direct electric charge to set that stuff off. You just helped me get rid of a very obnoxious partner." He leveled his paralo-ray gun.
"I hate to do this," he said, "but it's you or me."
He fired. Tom was again frozen into that immobile state more dead than alive. Miles laughed and hurried to the control deck.
Astro got up on his knees slowly. Though the fall had been a hard one, he had rolled quickly with the first impact, thus preventing any injuries. He shook his head, regained his sense of direction, and then rose to his feet, starting back to the ship in hope of helping Tom. He tripped over something and fell to the ground. Groping around in the thickening ammonia gas he felt the still form of a body. For a moment, thinking it was Tom, his heart nearly stopped, and then he breathed a silent prayer of thankfulness when he recognized Charley Brett. He felt the man's heart. There was a faint beat.
Astro opened the valve on Brett's oxygen mask wide and waited until the man was breathing normally. Then he began feeling his way back to the ladder. Suddenly he heard a sound that made his blood run cold. It was the unmistakable whine of the cooling pumps building for blast-off. And he was directly underneath the exhaust tubes.
He scrambled away, heading back to the spot where Brett lay. The whining of the pumps built to an agonizing scream. There were scant seconds left to save himself. He could not wait to find Brett. He began running wildly away from the ship, stumbling, falling, rising to his feet again to plunge on, away from the deadly white-hot exhaust blast of the Space Knight.
There was a terrific explosion, and then Astro was lifted off his feet and hurled through the mist, head over heels. He screamed and then blacked out.