Hammond gripped the electronic rifle he had taken from Cuzzvi, his eyes hard under the strange optical openings in the hybrid mask. The ship was swarming with Sediphrons, searching for the girls who had escaped from Zuggoth's harem. At any moment—
As if in answer to his worst fears a Sediphron squad appeared from a side corridor. They halted abruptly. The leader eyed the insignia on Gena's arm. Then he raised his huge left arm at a diagonal across his chest, evidently in salute.
Gena's thoughts rasped: "The engine rooms. The First One orders. The escaped Metiphrons have been sighted."
The Sediphron guard wheeled, went down the corridor at a shuffling gait. Hammond relaxed, feeling sweat in the palms of his hands, on his brow.
"This way!" Gena ordered. They cut down the side corridor from which the guard had emerged, and took a long ramp downward. Several times they met squads of the ugly crustaceans, but their disguise and Gena's harsh commands got them by.
They were well down in the ship, cutting across a big machine room, deserted by the Metiphron workers who tended the whirring machines when Gena halted. Ardiné and the Earthmen waited while she darted down a long aisle and vanished into a smaller room beyond where a huge, turbine-like thing of glinting metal spun with high-pitched hum.
The girl-commander had withdrawn one of the dull metal tubes before leaving them. She turned the knob, which moved the dial hand, evidently setting it to desired position.
Several minutes later she was back without the tube.
Ardiné's voice was shaken. "Gena—how long?"
"Four hours!" Gena replied. "Four hours until the degravitator of the Vandar III blows up." There was regret in her voice.