Not pausing to fold his bunk back against the curving hull, Lefler made his way briskly up the companionway, through the empty and darkened astrogation deck and into the control room.
"Makki," he called to the figure reclining in the control chair. "Makki, I'm due to relieve you. You're forty minutes overtime."
There was no answer. Floating up to the control chair, Lefler recoiled, bouncing painfully off the automatic pilot.
Makki was dead. Death had robbed his wide eyes of their dark scorn and smoothed the bitter lines of his heavy face. His coveralls were charred around the heat-beam burn in his chest.
The heat-gun bumped against Lefler's shoulder and drifted away at an angle across the gravityless control room. Lefler stared after it in horror.
Licking dry lips, he punched the communicator button.
"Blue alert!" he croaked into the microphone. "All hands to control room. Blue alert!"