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Morris talked together a good deal—Danvers-Marshall seemed the odd man out. He hadn’t the shared link of an Air Force background, and up here in space the difference of nationality also seemed in some curious way accentuated. In the early stages he had found plenty to do and he had in fact been fully occupied; now, with much of his data collected and ready to be fed into the computers, he had time on his hands; and time, in space, hung heavily. The eyes of all three men were now red-rimmed and shadowed, and eyelids dropped constantly. All three, even though they had each other’s company, were feeling the effects of the utter alone-ness of space; to them this was perhaps their biggest enemy as they half-drowsed their way through the universe, passing time and again over the friendly voices of the ground stations so many miles below, making their routine checks, obeying medical orders and taking their ration of xylose tablets as necessary. At times they had all suffered from space-sickness, a feeling like sea-sickness brought on by the effects of weightlessness. It did curious things to their equilibrium, and Danvers-Marshall had had odd sensations of hanging upside down, or of being crouched like an animal on the floor.
    As they passed yet again over Kennedy their families came on the air once more. The wives and children were well, but for the wives at any rate, as for the astronauts themselves, time was passing slowly and they would be relieved and happy once their menfolk were safe aboard the carrier that would be standing by in the Caribbean.
    There was still no word from mission control of the threatened trouble.
SEVEN
    In the Savoy Hotel Shaw told reception, “I’d like to see Miss Ingrid Lange.” Somehow, the ‘Miss’ fitted; the girl hadn’t sounded married. “She’s expecting me.”
    “Yes, sir. What name is it?”
    “Fetters. P. J. Fetters.”
    “Very good, sir.” The clerk got on the phone and after a brief conversation said, “The lady would like you to go up, sir. Suite 604.“ He signalled a bell-hop. Shaw was whisked upwards in a lift and followed behind the bell-hop along a corridor, discreet, well-carpeted, quiet. The bell-hop knocked at Suite 604 and the girl’s voice came through faintly, “Please wait. I am just coming,” and a few moments later the door was opened and Shaw walked past the bell-hop into the lobby of the suite with his hand on the butt of the Beretta in his shoulder-holster.
    The girl was around twenty-seven and as attractive as her voice. Her eyes widened but she stood demurely, with her hands behind her back. The bell-hop closed the door and left them to it. The girl said, “What is this? You are not Fetters?”
    “No, I’m not. You’ve met him, Miss Lange?”
    “No, but I know he is an old man.” She didn’t look scared and one reason for that became obvious when she brought her hands to the front. In the right was a tiny revolver aimed at Shaw’s guts. It wouldn’t hurt much at any range worth mentioning but right here in the small lobby it would make a lethal enough hole. “Who are you, please?”
    Shaw said easily, “Let’s just say I’m Smith. As a matter of fact it was I who talked to you on the phone, believe it or not, an hour ago . . . from Fetters’s back room. You won’t need that gun, Miss Lange, I promise you. Can’t we go into your sitting-room and talk this thing out comfortably? My intentions are strictly honourable, I might add, though I fear it’s going to be quite a strain keeping them that way.”
    Her eyes—blue eyes, reliable eyes—were steady as a rock over the top of the gun-hand, and that was steady too, but there was the faintest glimmer of amused appreciation in them. “Where,” she asked peremptorily, “is P. J. Fetters?”
    “Fetters, I’m sorry to say, is dead.”
    “You killed him?”
    He shook his head. “Certainly not. He was dead when I arrived. I’d hoped to find him very much alive.”
    “Why?”
    Shaw