Meanwhile I was beating my skull for not having thought earlier of the obvious slow-but-safe way of doing it, instead of that lunatic suit-jetting. I once heard a psychologist say we’re mental slaves to power-machinery and I guess he had something. Clearly all I had to do was climb hand-over-hand up the line to the ship. At moon gravity that would be easy. If I should get tired I only had to clamp on and rest. So I waited for my emotions to settle a bit, and then I reached along the line and gave a smooth, medium-strength heave. Maybe there is something to ESP—at least in a devilish sort of way—because I picked the exact moment when Jeff decided to feed the beam more juice. There was a _big_ jerk and I saw Trompled Love crumple a lot, so that it was pointing more than forty-five degrees aft. Now there was a steady pull on the line like I was hanging from a cliff on Mars. And the eye of the beam was a blue moon not so pale—in fact more like a sizzling blue sun seen through a light fog. After that I just didn’t have the heart to try the climb again. Once I started to draw myself up, very cautious, but on the first handhold I seemed to feel along the line Trompled Love crumpling some more and I quit for good. I figured that at this boost Jeff would be up to proper speed for Shaula-near in less than two hours. Well, I had suit-oxy and refrigeration for longer than that. Of course if Jeff decided not to cut the beam on schedule, maybe with the idea of eloping with Joseph to the next solar system—well, I’d discover then whether suit-oxy running out would stimulate me to try the climb again alongside the beam. (Or I could wait until he got her up near the speed of light, when by the General Theory of Relativity the line ought to be shortened enough so that I could hop aboard if I were sudden enough about it.... _No, Joe Hansen, you quit that_, I told myself, _you don’t want to die with the gears in your head all stripped_.) Thinking about the beam got me wondering exactly how close I was to it. I unshipped my suit-antenna and pulled it out to full length—about eight feet—and fished around with it in the direction of the beam. Nothing seemed to happen to it. It didn’t glow or anything; but I suddenly got a little electric shock, and when I drew it back I could see three inches of the tip were gone and the next couple inches were pitted. So much for curiosity. Next I reattached the antenna to my suit—which turned out to be a lot more troublesome job than unshipping it—and tongued on the radio with the idea of listening in on Jeff. * * * * *