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designed to service the life-support conduit to Engines. He unscrewed the panel and tugged. It did not move. He displaced another cradle and found a magnetic contraption with no discoverable leads. He summoned Svensk, who arrived unhurriedly and gave it a brief inspection.
    “Can you open this?”
    “Yes,” said Svensk, and started back through the hold.
    “Mr. Svensk, come back. I want you to open this lock.”
    “The semantic confusions you homotherms get into are beyond belief,” croaked Svensk. “Are you not aware that Morgan desires this to remain closed?”
    “As first officer of this ship I am ordering you to open it.”
    “When I said I could open it—I meant with the proper tools.”
    “What are the proper tools?”
    “Linear force must be applied in the presence of a certain set of alternating pressures in a gaseous medium.”
    He arched his long neck. Quent scowled at him.
    “Pressures? Mr. Svensk, are you deliberately—” Quent suddenly stabbed his wrench at the saurian. “It’s a sonic lock, isn’t it? Set for… Mr. Pomeroy, bring that recorder in the wardroom locker back here. I want you to imitate Morgan’s voice.”
    Reluctantly, Pomeroy tooted while Quent tugged, and the panel slid open. Instead of the shining banks and alleyways of a normal engine-room they were looking into a pitch-dark tangle.
    “What in the name of space—?” Quent reached into the filaments.
    “Sir, I wouldn’t do that,” warned Pomeroy.
    “Fascinating!” Svensk’s skullhead came over Quent’s shoulder.
    “What is that mess?”
    “I fancy it is part of the sensor system by which Morgan maintains contact with the stress structure of his mechanisms. I had no idea he had achieved anything so extensive.”
    “Just close it up, please sir,” Pomeroy begged.
    Quent stared into the web.
    “I’m going in,” he gritted.
    From behind them came a piercing wail. Quent spun and a gray wraith flew at his face, spitting sparks. He reeled back, his arms over his eyes. The hatch clashed shut.
    “Oh sir, that’s done it!” cried Pomeroy.
    The lights went out. The hold voder broke into a skirling, howling din. Quent heard Svensk pounding away from them, and stumbled after the sound. The wardroom voder began to roar. Quent found his hand light and rushed to the bridge. The deck was a bedlam of noise and every console was flashing. Svensk and Sylla were yanking out computer cables. Quent slammed down the circuit breakers. There was no effect. The hideous din yammered on.
    “Nothing to do but get out till he calms down,” Pomeroy yelled in Quent’s ear. “Thank the Lord we aren’t in space.”
    The others had left. As Quent went out Miss Appleby flew past in a whirl of turquoise silk.
    “You idiot,” she raged. “Look what you’ve done.”
    Imray stood glowering on the deck. Svensk towered at full height, his eyes veiled in membranes. Sylla paced with ears laid back and there was a decided pungency in the air.
    Quent slammed the lock but the uproar reverberating through the Rosenkrantz was clearly audible.
    “He’s got an override on those circuits,” Quent fumed. “I’m going in there and cut off his air.”
    “Asinine,” grated Svensk. “We are in air.”
    “His water, then.”
    “To do so would render the refrigerant exchange inoperative.”
    “There must be something—what does he eat?”
    “Special concentrates,” snapped Miss Appleby. “I stocked him with a year’s supply at Central.”
    Quent kicked a freight belt.
    “In other words, Morgan runs this ship.”
    Imray shrugged angrily.
    “He run it—we run it—we go,” he growled.
    “When Space Force Monitor hears about this it’ll be Morgan who goes.” Quent told them darkly.
    Sylla spat.
    “The first officer had forgotten the Kipsuga Chomo. Or perhaps he recalls the four-ten which inconvenienced him?”
    “What?” Quent turned on the lutroid. “I have forgotten nothing, Mr. Sylla. What has the Kip to do with Morgan?”
    Imray