"B.0.B., what now?" Dan asked.

"We'll try the main passageway.  Follow me, everybody."

The exhausted group made their way through the main passageway until they reached a pile of
wreckage.  It completely cut off their path.  They had to climb to a swaying catwalk which hung over
the power center of the Cygnus.  Clouds of leaking hydrogen rose from the reactors below.

"That walk looks weak," Kate said.  "It could go any minute, and we'd fall a hundred feet into the
nuclear reactors."

"It's the only way to the probe ship," Dan said.  "B.O.B., you carry Kate across.  V.I.N.CENT, you
take Pizer.  I'll go on foot."

Old B.O.B. hovered across the gap with Kate on his back, and V.I.N.CENT followed with Pizer.

Dan started gingerly across the walk.  It sagged and swayed.  Just as he reached the middle, it
snapped in two.  Lurching forward, Dan grabbed a handrail and rode the broken half of the walk
down, crashing into the wall below.  He clung to the handrail, hanging in the steam above the
throbbing machinery.

"Dan!" Kate screamed.  "Oh, Dan!"

"Don't worry, Dr. Kate," V.I.N.CENT called, over the hiss of escaping gas.  "B.O.B. and I can bring
him up.  Come on, old-timer, let's get to it."

The two robots disappeared into the hydrogen cloud.  Kate and Pizer waited anxiously until they
reappeared through the steam with Dan hanging between them.  While they considered their next
move, Kate wiped the blood from a cut on Dan's forehead.  Old B.O.B. suggested that they go through
the ship's garden to reach the probe ship.