[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy January 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Like the sibilant, labored breathing of a dying monster, the tortured ship wailed its death sobs as it floundered in deep hyperstellar space. Clank-sss, clank-sss , went the battered safety valve of the pile cooling system. BOOM ... boom ... BOOM ... boom. A severed and dangling piston ro