He heard the sound of triple-toned voices in both musical and discordant sounds, distorted and muffled by the deck and by the helmet he wore. Someone fiddled with the inspection hatch; and Farradyne found the scuttlebutt and valved air out into space so the enemy would have a hard time cracking the hatch. Whoever it was gave up after a moment; and then came the sound of drilling on the deck-plates above him. A cloud of whitish vapor spurted downward and the sound of alien voices rose sharply as the drill came through. Three more spurts of escaping air blasted downward in whitish vapor that skirled around the annular room and went in a fading draw towards the scuttlebutt.
Plugs filled the four holes and Farradyne turned his head-torch on them. They were heavy self-tapping bolts being turned in from above. There was a softer sound of scraping, and the clumping of feet; then the sound of men at work faded away.
Farradyne took a deep breath and realized that his skin was itching from the cold perspiration that bathed him. The taste in his mouth was brackish; his heart was pounding and his breath was shallow and rapid. He opened his mouth to gasp and discovered that he had been clenching his teeth so hard that his jaw ached.
He closed the scuttlebutt, but did not valve any air into his hiding place. He put the top of his helmet against the deck-plates above him and listened. Far above he could hear them, still at work; but they were going higher and higher in the ship.
He relaxed, waiting.
Three more hours passed, as nerve-wracking as any Farradyne had ever spent. Then, with absolutely no warning, the drive went off completely. He floated from the deck and scrabbled around to grab a stanchion, finally getting his magnetic shoes against a girder where they held him at an odd angle.
The drive went on to a full one-gravity and hurled Farradyne flat against the bottom of the cubby, wrenching his ankles slightly. The drive went off again, and then on, and finally off. This time it stayed off.
Floating free, with only his feet for mooring, was like resting in a tub of body-temperature water; and as the lulling, muscle-freeing sensation went on and on, Farradyne's mind lulled and he dozed. From the doze, he dropped off into a deep slumber.
XXI