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unhooked his laser torch and went to work once more.
    He torched his way through the inner door much faster than he had managed to burn through the hull metal— which was hardly surprising.
    Again, there was no outward blast of escaping air. He was profoundly grateful. If his action had evacuated the ship, he would have regarded himself as a homicidal—or would it be aliencidal?—vandal.
    He jetted through the opening and found himself in a long, totally black corridor. Obviously, power systems were stone cold dead as, most likely, was everything else.
    He let his headlight play along the corridor in both directions. There seemed to be no end to it.
    “I designate the fat end of this vessel as north and the small end as south,” he reported back. “I am in a long north-south corridor. I am jetting north to see what I can see.”
    He adjusted his jets and began to move. He had gone about two hundred and fifty metres when he came upon an amazing sight.
    The corridor led to a wide railed causeway or ledge that ran round an immense chamber. The chamber contained the twisted and shattered remains of a great deal of intricate machinery. Though he did not recognise the function of the fragmented equipment, Conrad surmised that he was in the engine-room.
    He peered “down” into the well of the chamber—and saw stars.
    He saw stars through a jagged hole, some thirty metres across, in the vessel’s hull. The torn metal edges of the skin were bent inwards as if the hull had been pierced by a missile of some kind. He looked up—and again saw stars.
    There was a corresponding hole directly above—the exit hole. There, the ripped metal plate was bent outwards. But the shape and size of the tear was about the same.
    He held on to the “hand” rail to stop himself drifting, and stayed there, marvelling at the sight for some minutes. He was awed and saddened by what he saw. This fantastic vessel had doubtless travelled through the light-years with a huge complement and/or huge pay-load only to meet with the kind of catastrophe that haunts the dreams of all spacemen.
    Kwango’s voice broke the spell. “Commander, you all right?”
    Conrad shook himself out of his reverie. For ail he knew, the disaster had happened thousands of years ago; but the sense of tragedy was timeless.
    “Yes, I’m all right. This vessel presents no threat. Something—or someone—has punched a bloody great hole —two bloody great holes—through its vitals… I’d like to explore it thoroughly. But if I get drawn into that caper, we are going to lose a lot of precious time. U.N. is paying us to prove Tantalus. Now that I have satisfied myself that this thing is harmless, we’ll get on with our work. If Tantalus doesn’t turn out to be too rough, and if any potential saboteurs don’t start tossing spanners when we are not looking, maybe there will be the opportunity to come upstairs again.”
    Kwango laughed. “Or the horse may talk,” he said obscurely.
    “What the hell does that mean?”
    “Nothing, Boss. Just a private joke.”
    Conrad glanced once more at the scene of desolation. “Tell the joke, Kurt. I’m in a mood for funnies.”
    “O.K. Boss. Several centuries ago, there was this King Louis of France, which is a country on that offshore island to Britain they call Eurasia. Well, King Louis had heard there was some guy who had the fluence and could make animals speak. Louis didn’t believe this too much, but he had a favourite horse and he thought it would be fun to hear its opinions about this and that. So he had this guy brought to him and said: They tell me you make animals talk. Make my horse talk. How much time do you need?”
    “Now this guy knew he didn’t really have the fluence. But he was afraid the king might get real mad if he confessed. So he said: I need one year, Majesty.”
    “Hokay, said the king. One year it is. If the horse talks you hit the jack-pot. If it doesn’t you are in dead trouble. And how do you