"Yeah," sneered Loring. "Well, I happen to know you do that right on the control board." He motioned with the paralo-ray gun. "Get back down!"
"On regular space drive, you do," agreed Tom. "But we're on hyperdrive now. It has to be done there"--he pointed to a cluster of valves and wheels at one side of the control deck--"one of those valve wheels."
"Stay where you are," said Mason. "I'll do it!" He moved to the corner. "Which one is it?" he asked.
Tom gulped and struggled hard to keep the terrible nervousness out of his voice. He had to sound as casual as possible. "The red one. Turn it to the right, hard!" he said.
Loring sat down and Mason bent over the valve wheel. He gave the wheel a vicious twist. Suddenly there was the sound of a motor slowing down somewhere inside the great ship. Tom gripped the edge of the control board and waited. Slowly at first, but surely, Tom felt himself beginning to float off his chair.
"Hey!" yelled Mason. "I'm--I'm floating!"
"It's the gravity generators," yelled Loring. "Corbett's pulled a fast one. We're in free fall!"
Tom lifted his feet and pushed as hard as he could against the control panel. He shot out of the chair and across the control room just as Loring fired his ray gun. There was a loud hiss as the gun was fired, and then the thud of a body against the wall, as Loring was suddenly shoved by the recoil of the charge.
Tom huddled in the upper corner of the control deck like a spider, his legs drawn up underneath him waiting for Mason to fire. But the smaller spaceman was tumbling head over heels in the center of the room. The more he exerted himself, the more helpless he became. His arms and legs splayed out in an effort to level himself, as he kept trying to fire the ray gun.
Tom saw his chance and lunged through the air again, straight at the floating spaceman. He passed him in mid-air. Mason made an attempt to grab him, but Tom wrenched his body to one side and pulled the ray gun out of the other's hand.
He flipped over and turned his attention to Loring who was more dangerous, since he was now backed up against a bulkhead waiting for Tom to present a steady target. Loring started to fire, but Tom saw him in time and shot away from the wall toward the hatch. He twisted his body completely around, and with his shoulder hunched over, fired at Loring with his ray gun. The charge hit the target and Loring became rigid, his body slowly floating above the deck. His back to the wall, braced for the recoil, Tom brought his arm around slowly and aimed at Mason. He fired, and the spaceman stiffened.