Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 102: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

has to enclose the ship centrally. Brent knew where he was and where everything he wanted to find was, too. He headed for the overdrive room. There were only dim service lamps out here. They threw faint glows on the narrow steel plates of the catwalk on which he had emerged. It would lead to the crew-lift—the Shaft up to the crew’s quarters on which crewmen would rise and descend by the use of stirrups racked on every level. The fuel tanks were globular, to resist internal pressure. The separate motor rooms were also globular, so they could serve as airtight compartments In case of need. Brent went ten paces down the narrow walk. He rounded the ship’s main water tank. Then he vanished. He simply reached out, grasped a curving truss-braced girder, and swung into the obscurity between the giant metal balls. The girders, in pairs and with stiffening members between them, were wholly practical ways to move from one place to another. Service crews in space ports used them. He climbed tnto blackness, making no noise. Presently he was under the air-plant room. He heard the rushing sound of turbines pulling air through hoses from the several compartments through the ship. Brent listened critically to the noise of the air plant, as an indication of the age and design of the ship. He was about to move on when he heard the rattle of a stirrup on the crew-lift. He watched. A figure descended Slowly. He passed by a light in his descent. It was not a crew member, but the passenger Rudi. He got off the lift-shaft, clipped the stirrup in its rack without fumbling, and moved along the catwalk Brent had used only minutes before. He’s been reporting, thought Brent coldly. They’ve probably figured out their timetable. So many riots, so many dead, so much of the unspeakable, and then they’ll decide it’s time to declare the overdrive repaired. And they’ll go back to Khem TV because that’s the ship’s home port and murder has been done, and the passengers who survive will CORniclooo SS CO