SPILLTHROUGH
By Daniel F. Galouye
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy January 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Ships switching from hyper to normal space had to do it in a micro-second—if the crews were to live. But it would take Brad suicidal minutes!
Like the sibilant, labored breathing of a dying monster, the tortured ship wailed its death sobs as it floundered in deep hyperstellar space.
Clank-sss, clank-sss, went the battered safety valve of the pile cooling system.
BOOM ... boom ... BOOM ... boom. A severed and dangling piston rod crashed in monotonous rhythm against a deck beam as the rest of the auxiliary compression unit strained to satisfy its function.
An off-beat bass viol strum added its depressive note to the symphony of destruction's aftermath—throom-throom ... throom-throom. It was the persistent expansion of plate metal reacting to heat from a ruptured tube jacket.