“What in the name of all the devils has happened ere?” the captain stormed to a cringing junior officer as he stepped out of the shuttle.
“It … it’s the power, sir. The power . .. shut off.”
“Shut off?”
The officer swallowed nervously and replied, “Yessir. All at once … all through the ship … no power!”
The captain fumed under his breath for a moment, then snapped, “Crank the inner hatch open and get me to the bridge.”
The deck hands jumped to it, and in a few minutes the captain, jumior officer, and lower ratings had deserted the air lock, leaving the shuttle empty and unguardedOut of the pressurized control compartment at the far end of the lock stepped Hector, his thin face wary and serious, but not without the flickerings of a slightly selfsatisfied smile.
They should be finding the cause of the power failure in a minute or two, he said to himself. And as soon as the main lights go on, out I go.
Hector tiptoed around the lock, making certain adjustments to the temporarily inert air pumps and hatch control unit. Then he climbed into the little shuttle, sealed its hatch, and studied the control panel. Not too tough …I think.
It had been a ridiculously easy job to cause a power breakdown. All Hector had needed was a little time, so that the guards would begin to allow him to roam certain parts of the ship alone. He had spent long hours in the observation center, learning the layout of the mammoth ship and pinpointing his ultimate objective—the Ministry of Intelligence, where a dueling machine was.