Space Station 1

He wouldn’t have considered ten or twelve seconds spent with a pocket flash a waste of time. But he had no pocket flash. The best he could do was stretch out both of his arms to determine just how far apart the bulkheads were. They were less than six feet apart.

Well, no sense in measuring the walls. A girl he’d talked to and liked instantly had vanished in a dark world, and he knew now that there was more than mere liking in the way he felt about her. He didn’t dare ask himself how much more, not in so confined a space and with his chances of finding her again dwindling with every second that passed.

The passageway ended in a blank wall, less than forty feet from its beginning. Corriston saw the wall and was advancing toward it when he suddenly realized that the deck itself wasn’t continuous. In his path, and almost directly underfoot, a companionway entrance yawned, so unexpectedly close that another short step would have sent him plunging into it. He saw the faint light reflected on its circumference and halted just in time to avoid a possibly fatal fall.

He knelt and stared down into a spiraling web of darkness. He could see a faint glimmer of light on metal and knew that he was bending above either a circular staircase or a companionway ladder. It turned out to be a staircase. Down it he went, moving cautiously, holding on to the supporting guide rail as he descended deeper and deeper into the darkness.

The darkness became almost absolute when the stairs ended. For a moment, at least, what appeared to be utter blackness engulfed him. Then gradually his vision became more effective. He could make out the faint outlines of stationary objects, of depths beyond depths, of crisscrossing lines and angles.

In utter darkness the glint of metal often seemed to draw the eyes like a magnet, to make itself known even without illumination. But there seemed to be a faint glow far off somewhere. He couldn’t be sure, but light there should have been if — as he more than half-suspected — he was in one of the ship’s below-deck ballast or storage compartments.

The deck beneath his feet was straight and level and cluttered with no impediments. He moved forward warily, testing every step until a wall of metal stopped him. He halted abruptly, felt along the barrier and became aware that it was studded with small bolts and was just a little corrugated. Exhibit A: one supporting metal beam, rough and slightly uneven in texture. Abruptly he reached the end of it and found himself underway again, still moving cautiously to avoid unseen pitfalls. He had not progressed more than a dozen feet when he heard the scrape of footsteps other than his own, and someone moved up close to him and blocked his way in the darkness.

For an instant the wild thought went through his mind that the someone was the captain. But he had seen and talked with the Captain and that self-contained, blunt-spoken man wasn’t nearly as big physically as the path-blocker seemed to be.

The someone did not speak. But Corriston could sense the enmity flowing from him, the utter refusal to budge an inch, the determination to make his nearness a deadly threat in itself. Then the someone moved back a step. The far- off light could hardly have been an illusion, because for the barest instant Corriston could dimly make out the huge bulk of the man and the glint of the knife in his hand.

Two big men in the space of half an hour! The first had ceased to draw breath and the second was his killer. Corriston was suddenly sure of it. He knew it instinctively.

Then began the struggle which had almost robbed Corriston of his life, the cruel, one-sided, impossible-to-win struggle in total darkness.

And Corriston had won it.

Now almost in disbelief, Corriston looked down at the knife he had taken from the loser, telling himself that it was impossible that so much could have happened in so short a time and that he could still be alive at the end of it.

The wound in his shoulder was no longer painless, but it had ceased to bleed profusely, and his exploring fingers convinced him that the knife had severed no more than a superficial ligament. He strained his ears in the sudden quiet, listening for a possible return of his adversary. He did not think that the defeated man would attempt a second attack. But there was no telling what he might or might not do. Probably he’d ascended the companionway by now and was mingling with the other passengers.

The final link in Corriston’s search had snapped. Even while battling for his life, he had felt close to the vanished girl. The man who had killed Clakey had been at least a link, a link that, short of Corriston s total defeat, might have been seized upon with physical violence and made to yield up its secret.

Now Corriston found himself wondering if the defeated man had been telling the truth. Had the link been nonexistent from the first? Was the killer as completely in the dark as he was as to the whereabouts of Ramsey’s daughter?