Teejay frowned or at least Steve guessed she frowned by the way she spoke. "There's nothing much we can do about it, Stedman. Seems to be a hole--just a pinprick, but a hole--in the asbestos. It's a wonder you weren't screaming bloody murder before this. How's the air?" It _was_ getting hard to breathe, Steve realized, but dimly, for his senses were receding into a fog of half-consciousness. Something hissed in his ears and he knew Teejay had turned the outside dial of his air-pump all the way over. It made him feel momentarily better, but the pain still cut into his leg. "I've got the worm," said LeClarc. "But what happened to him?" He asked the question innocently--too innocently. Teejay didn't answer. Instead: "Can you walk, Stedman?" "I--I don't think so." "Then I'll carry you. But remember this: if we get you back all right, you can thank the twenty-second century feminist movement. Can you picture an old-fashioned gal slinging a man over her shoulder and toting him away to safety like a sack of grain? Here we go." And she got her arms under Steve's shoulder, tugging him upright and swinging him across her back in a fireman's carry. He felt in no mood to question her motive, but he could sense the triumph in her as if she had said, "See, I'm as strong as a man, and don't you forget it." In spite of himself, he couldn't help responding to the unspoken challenge. "Sure," he said, "I can thank the feminist movement, but more than that I can thank Mercury's light gravity, Teejay. We're lucky I don't weigh more than fifty pounds here." An hour later they arrived back at Furnacetown, but by then Steve was unconscious from the pain. * * * * * "How are you feeling, boy?" It was Kevin McGann, the battered, unlit pipe clamped tightly between his teeth as he spoke. Steve sat propped up in a bed in the _Gordak_'s infirmary, his left leg wrapped in bandages from knee to ankle. "Pretty good, I guess. Kind of weak, but there's no pain." "You're lucky the Captain got you back here in time. Four inches of your calf was cooked third degree, but she carried you back here soon enough to cut it away before deep decomposition, and spray on syntheplasm. You'll be as good as new in a week, and no scar, either. Thanks to the Captain, boy." "Yeah," Steve admitted. "Sure. But what I want to know is this: how did it happen?" Kevin shrugged his massive shoulders. "I won't make any accusations, boy, not without positive proof. But I took the liberty to examine your suit, and it looked to me like someone had punctured a small hole almost all the way through. The heat did the rest." "You mean LeClarc?" "I never said that. But LeClarc was the one who got the suits, so he--more than anyone--was in a position to do something like that. Further than that I won't carry it. This is not an accusation." "Suits me," Steve told him. "And thanks, Kevin. But after this, Frenchie had better watch his step. Are we out in space again?"