“Sinbad!” Dane glanced about the cabin.  “Did Sinbad get out past you?” he demanded of the puzzled Ali.

“No—­I haven’t seen him all day—­”

Yet the cat was nowhere in the tiny cabin and it had no concealed hiding place.  To make doubly sure Dane secured the panel before they carried Tau to his bunk.  The Medic had blacked out again, passed into the lethargic second stage of the malady.  At least he was out of the pain which appeared to be the worst symptom of the disease.

“It must be Sinbad!” Dane said as he made his report directly to Captain Jellico.  “And yet—­”

“Yes, he’s been staying in Van’s cabin,” the Captain mused.  “And you’ve handled him, he slept on your bunk.  Yet you and Van are all right.  I don’t understand that.  Anyway—­to be on the safe side—­we’d better find and isolate him before—­”

He didn’t have to underline any words for the grim-faced men who listened.  With Tau—­their one hope of fighting the disease gone—­they had a black future facing them.

They did not have to search for Sinbad.  Dane coming down to his own section found the cat crouched before the panel of Van Rycke’s cabin, his eyes glued to the thin crack of the door.  Dane scooped him up and took him to the small cargo space intended for the safeguarding of choice items of commerce.  To his vast surprise Sinbad began fighting wildly as he opened the hatch, kicking and then slashing with ready claws.  The cat seemed to go mad and Dane had all he could do to shut him in.  When he snapped the panel he heard Sinbad launch himself against the barrier as if to batter his way out.  Dane, blood welling in several deep scratches, went in search of first aid.  But some suspicion led him to pause as he passed Van Rycke’s door.  And when his knock brought no answer he pushed the panel open.

Van Rycke lay on his bunk, his eyes half closed in a way which had become only too familiar to the crew of the Solar Queen.  And Dane knew that when he looked for it he would find the mark of the strange plague on the Cargo-master’s body.

Chapter IX

PLAGUE!

Jellico and Steen Wilcox pored over the few notes Tau had made before he was stricken.  But apparently the Medic had found nothing to indicate that Sinbad was the carrier of any disease.  Meanwhile the Captain gave orders for the cat to be confined.  A difficult task—­since Sinbad crouched close to the door of the storage cabin and was ready to dart out when food was taken in for him.  Once he got a good way down the corridor before Dane was able to corner and return him to keeping.

Dane, Ali and Weeks took on the full care of the four sick men, leaving the few regular duties of the ship to the senior officers, while Rip was installed in charge of the hydro garden.

Mura, the first to be taken ill, showed no change.  He was semi-conscious, he swallowed food if it were put in his mouth, he responded to nothing around him.  And Kosti, Tau, and Van Rycke followed the same pattern.  They still held morning inspection of those on their feet for signs of a new outbreak, but when no one else went down during the next two days, they regained a faint spark of hope.