Check in the Eye. Images dancing and wavering — yes, only four ships.

“Which one?”

“I think—” Bannerman, gasping, “Mendez.”

“Once more.”

“Captain, you can’t ask—”

“Give me a hookup then.” Pause. “You hear me? Give me a hookup.”

“Hookup—” some officer’s voice. “You’re hooked up, captain.”

“All right, this is Captain Graeme.” Croak and squeak. Was that his voice speaking? “I’m calling for volunteers — one more run. Volunteers only. Speak up, anyone who’ll go.”

Long pause.

“Shai Dorsai!”

“Shai El Man! — any others?”

“Sir—” Bannerman — “The other two ships aren’t receiving.”

Blink at Eye. Focus. True. Two of three ships there yawning out of line.

“Just the two of us then. Bannerman?”

“At” — croaking — “your orders, sir.”

“Make the run.”

Pause …

Phase shift!

Planet, whirling — shock — dark space. Can’t black out now—

“Pull her out of it!” Pause. “Bannerman!”

Weakly responding: “Yes sir—”

— Darkness …

“ — Up!”

It was a snarling, harsh, bitter whisper in Donal’s ear. He wondered, eyes-closed, where it was coming from. He heard it again, and once again. Slowly it dawned on him that he was saying it to himself.

He fought his eyes open.

The control room was still as death. In the depths of the eye before him three small tiny shapes of ships could be seen, at full magnification, far-flung from each other. He fumbled with dead fingers at the ties on his suit, then bound them to his chair. One by one they came free. He pushed himself out of the chair and fell to his knees on the floor.

Swaying, staggering, he got to his feet. He turned himself toward the five chairs at the control panel, and staggered to them.

In four of the chairs, Bannerman and his three officers sagged unconscious. The Third Officer seemed more than unconscious. His face was milkish white and he did not seem to be breathing. All four men had been sick.

In the fifth chair, Lee hung twisted in his ties. He was not unconscious. His eyes were wide on Donal as he approached, and a streak of blood had run down from one corner of the orderly’s mouth. He had apparently tried to break his ties by main strength, like a mindless animal, and go directly to Donal. And yet his eyes were not insane, merely steady with an unnatural fixity of purpose. As Donal reached him Lee tried to speak; but all he was able to manage for a second was a throttled sound, and a Httle more blood came out of the corner of his mouth.

“Y’arright?” he mumbled, finally.

“Yes,” husked Donal. “Get you loose in a minute. What happened to your mouth?”

“Bit tongue—” mumbled Lee thickly. “M’arright.”

Donal unfastened the last of the ties and, reaching up, opened Lee’s mouth with his hands. He had to use real strength to do so. A little more blood came out, but he was able to see in. One edge of Lee’s tongue, halfway back from the tip, had been bitten entirely through.

“Don’t talk,” directed Donal. “Don’t use that tongue at all until you can get it fixed.”

Lee nodded, with no mark of emotion, and began painfully to work out of the chair.

By the time he was out, Donal had managed to get the ties loose on the still form of the Third Officer. He pulled the man out of the chair and laid him on the floor. There was no perceptible heartbeat. Donal stretched him out and attempted to begin artificial respiration; but at the first effort his head swam dizzily and he was forced to stop. Slowly he pulled himself erect and began to break loose the ties on Bannerman.

“Get the Second, if you feel up to it,” he told Lee. The Cobyman staggered stiffly around to the Second Officer and began work on his ties.

Between the two of them, they got the three Freilanders stretched, out on the floor and their helmets off. Bannerman and the Second Officer began to show signs of regaining consciousness and Donal left them to make another attempt at respiration with the Third Officer. But he found the body, when he touched it. was already beginning to cool.

He turned back and began work on the First Officer, who was still laxly unconscious. After a while the First Officer began to breathe deeply and more steadily; and his eyes opened. But it was apparent from his gaze that he did not see the rest of them, or know where he was. He stared at the control panel with blank eyes like a man in a heavily drugged condition.

“How’re you feeling?” Donal asked Bannerman. The Freiland captain grunted, and made an effort to raise himself up on one elbow. Donal helped, and between the two of them they got him, first sitting up, then to his knees, and finally — with the help of the back of a chair to pull him up — to his feet.

Bannerman’s eyes had gone directly to the control panel, from the first moment they had opened. Now, without a word, he pulled himself painfully back into his chair and began clumsily to finger studs.

“All ship sections,” he croaked into the grille before him. “Report.”

There was no answer.

“Report!” he said. His forefinger came down on a button and an alarm bell rang metallically loud through the ship. It ceased and a faint voice came from the speaker overhead.

“Fourth Gun Section reporting as ordered, sir—”

The battle of Newton was over.

Sirius himself had just set, and the small bright disk of that white dwarf companion that the Freilanders and the New Earthmen had a number of uncomplimentary names for was just beginning to show strongly through the wall of Donal’s bedroom, Donal sat, bathed in the in-between light, dressed in only a pair of sport trunks, sorting through some of the interesting messages that had come his way, recently — since the matter of the raid on Newton.

So engrossed was he that he paid no attention until Lee tapped him on one brown-tanned shoulder.

“Time to dress for the party,” said the Cobyman. He had a gray dress uniform of jacket and trousers, cut in the long-line Freiland style, over one arm. It was fashionably free of any insignia of rank. “I’ve got a couple of pieces of news for you. First, she was here again.”

Donal frowned, getting into the uniform. Elvine had conceived the idea of nursing him after his return from the short hospital stay that had followed the Newton affair. It was her convenient conclusion that he was still suffering from the psychological damage of the overdose of phase-shifting they had all gone through. Medical opinion and Donal’s to the contrary, she had insisted on attaching herself to him with a constancy which lately had led him to wonder if perhaps he would not have preferred the phase shifting itself. The frown now vanished, however.

“I think I see an end to that,” he said. “What else?”

“This William of Ceta you’re so interested in,” answered Lee. “He’s here for the party.”

Donal turned his head to look sharply at the man. But Lee was merely delivering a report. The bony face was empty of even those small signs of expression which Donal had come to be able to read, in these past weeks of association.

“Who told you I was interested in William?” he demanded.

“You listen when people talk about him,” said Lee. “Shouldn’t I mention him?”

“No, that’s all right,” Donal said. “I want you to tell me whenever you find out anything about him you think I might not know. I just didn’t know you observed that closely.”

Lee shrugged. He held the jacket for Donal to slide his arms into.

“Where’d he come from?” asked Donal.

“Venus,” said Lee. “He’s got a Newton man with him — big young drunk named Montor. And a girl — one of those special people from the Exotics.”

“The Select of Kultis?”