Tom twisted weightlessly and stared back at Earth. "Well just what the hell am I supposed to _do_?" "Don't get excited," Jason's voice grated in his earphones. "We've calculated it all out. According to our figures, your suit will store enough heat during the day to last the night...." "I nearly froze to death last night and the ship was heated most of the time!" "It will get cold," Jason's voice answered calmly, "but you should be able to make it. Your own body warmth will be stored by the suit's insulation, and that will help somewhat. But you must not open the suit all night, not even to take off your helmet." "And the oxygen?" "You can take all the replacement cylinders from the ship and keep them at the satellite. The time you save by not having to go back and forth to the ship for fresh oxygen will give you about an hour's extra margin. You should be able to make it." Tom nodded. "And of course I'm expected to work on the satellite right through the night." "It will help you keep your mind off the cold. If we see that you're not going to make it--either because of the cold or the oxygen--we'll warn you and you can return to the settlement." "Suppose I have enough oxygen to just finish the satellite, but if I do, I won't have enough to fly home. Will you warn me then?" "Don't be dramatic." "Go to hell." "Dr. Arnoldsson said he could put you under," Jason continued unemotionally, "but he thinks you might freeze once your conscious mind went asleep." "You've figured out all the details," Tom muttered. "All I have to do is put your damned satellite together without freezing to death and then fly 22,500 miles back home before my air runs out. Simple." He glanced at the sun, still glaring bright even through his tinted visor. It was nearly on the edge of the Earth-disk. "All right," Tom said, "I'm going into the ship now for some pills; it's nearly sunset." * * * * * Cold. Dark and so cold that numbers lost their meaning. Paralyzing cold, seeping in through the suit while you worked, crawling up your limbs until you could hardly move. The whole universe hung up in the sky and looked down on the small cold figure of a man struggling blindly with machinery he could not understand. Dark. Dark and cold. Ruth stayed on the radio as long as Jason would allow her, talking to Tom, keeping the link with life and warmth. But finally Jason took over, and the radio went silent. _So don't talk_, Tom growled silently, _I can keep warm just by hating you, Jason._ He worked through the frigid night, struggling ant-like with huge pieces of equipment. Slowly he assembled the big parabolic mirror, the sighting mechanism and the atomic convertor. With dreamy motions he started connecting the intricate wiring systems. And all the while he raged at himself: _Why? Why did it have to be this way? Why me? Why did I agree to do this? I knew I'd never live through it; why did I do it?_