Normally, Larry thought of the curving ring of screens as the eye of a giant electronic insect, multifaceted to see into all the areas of the ship. He had studied about Earth’s insects briefly in a biology course, on the learning tapes. But now his attention was riveted to one particular screen, where the fire was raging in cryonics area six. There wasn’t much he could see smoke obscured almost everything.

He put a hand on the shoulder of the girl working that console.

“Can’t you get the emergency equipment functioning?”

She was a thin, dark-skinned girl, with close-cropped hair. Glancing up at Larry. “It should’ve gone on automatically. But it won’t respond at all. I’ve tried.” Her eyes were wide with fear, anxiety.

“It’s not your fault,” Larry said calmly “Don’t blame yourself.”

“But there are fifty sleepers in there!”

Larry shook his head. Without bothering to go across to the life support displays, he said, “They must be dead by now, Tania. No sense tearing yourself up over it.”

He took a step to the guy sitting at the next desk console. “You in touch with the Damage Control group?”

“Yes they’ve plugged into a wall phone out in the main corridor, just outside area six.”

“Who’s in charge?”

“It’s Mort Campbell’s unit, but he’s not the one on the phone.”

“Let me talk.”

“Is it cryonics six?”

Larry turned to see Dan Christopher at the door down at the far end of the bridge. For an instant, everything seemed to stand still people frozen at the console desks, communications speakers quiet, viewscreens stilled.

The two of them looked almost like brothers, at first glance. Larry was tall and slim with dark hair that he kept clipped fairly short. His eyes, though, were a cold gray, like a granite rock floating in space far from the warmth of a star. Dan was the same height and also youthfully slim. His hair was a lighter shade, and almost shoulder length. It curled slightly. His eyes were fiercely black, deep and flashing. Both of them were wearing workshift coveralls, Larry’s the blue-gray shade of the ship’s Command and Control personnel, Dan’s the howling orange of the Propulsion and Power section.