"Damn!" exclaimed Kort. "Why didn't I—"
"Steady, son. Too late now. The last launch's gone."
"Why didn't I think of it before?" asked Kort wildly. "How many drums has the captain got for that blaster?"
Hodge chuckled. "If I know Spale, he's got twenty or thirty. Spale! Holy cheroot, we forgot all about him!"
Without a word they rushed together to the captain's cabin. Hodge flung the door wide. Spale lay as they had left him, motionless in his bunk. But at sight of his face Kort turned cold within. The normally flushed features were a dull purple.
"Critters got him too," Hodge said calmly. "Probably never felt a thing, the shape he was in." He stooped over the desk in the far corner, tossed a jumble of bottles, pipes, pencils and other miscellany out of one drawer after another, at last uttered a triumphant grunt.
"Here!" Kort snatched the squat black cylinder Hodge tossed to him. The first mate delved further. "Plenty more in here—sure you want 'em, son?"
"All of them," said Kort breathlessly, tearing the discharged drum from the blaster and fitting the new one in its place. While the mate's back was turned he ripped away a small black box affixed beneath the weapon's chunky barrel, and twisted together the raw ends of the wires thus exposed. Furtively he looked up to see whether Hodge had noticed, but the latter was still bent over the desk.
Suddenly the blaster seemed to turn ice cold in Kort's hand. For a moment, he doubted his ability to press the trigger. His nerves seemed frozen, incapable of action in the dread need of the moment.