There was no alarm as I cautiously slid the trap in the chart room ceiling.
"Oh—Oh, please—let me alone!"
"But, my dear little lady, do you want me to kill Penelle? Surely you—" The snaky Torio got no further than that. I was some fifteen feet directly above him. Perhaps he was aware of my hurtling body but he had no chance to avoid it as I crashed down upon him. The work-knife in my gloved, metal-fingered hand stabbed. He went limp under me, with blood gushing from his chest where the knife had gone to its hilt.
My helmet was up in the pressure room. "Nina, climb up!" I slid the little wall ladder into position for her. "Quick, now! Get into the pressure suit up there. Inflate it, and wait for me."
White and grim, she obeyed wordlessly. I started her up the ladder, swung for the hidden wall safe. Would the leaden cylinder of the catalyst still be here? It was. I strapped it quickly to my belt.
Then I dashed for the instrument cubby. A little explosive time-bomb.... I found one; and hurried with it into the control turret, where I placed it against the mechanisms of the Erentz current—that huge electronic stream which circulated throughout all the double-shelled plates of the vessel to absorb the inner pressure. Ten minutes? Would that give us time enough?
Nina was in the pressure suit when in a minute more I reached the upper room.
"Good enough, Nina. Now, the helmet! Your brother Jim is outside—safe."
My heart leaped with triumph at her gasp of joy. "Oh, Fred—"
"Come on, hurry."