He did not float about. He held onto a pipe in two places, and he applied expert pressure in a strictly professional manner, and his feet remained firmly on the floor. He startled young Barnes by the achievement, which only junior swots think only junior swots know about. Barnes said, abashed: "Yes, sir." He held himself in the same fashion. "I even know," said Bordman, "that the gravity had to be cut off because we're approaching another ship on Lawlor drive. Our gravity-coils would blow if we got into her field with our drive off, or if her field pressed ours inboard." Young Barnes looked extremely uncomfortable. Bordman felt sorry for him. To be chewed, however delicately, for patronizing a senior officer could not be pleasant. So Bordman added: "And I also remember that, when I was a junior swot I once tried to tell a Sector Chief how to top off his suit-tanks. So don't let it bother you!" The young officer was embarrassed. A Sector Chief was so high in the table of Survey organization that one of his idle thoughts was popularly supposed to be able to crack a junior officer's skull. If Bordman, as a young officer, had really tried to tell a Sector Chief how to top his suit-tanks.... Why.... "Thank you, sir," said Barnes awkwardly. "I'll try not to be an ass again, sir." "I suspect," said Bordman, "that you'll slip occasionally. I did! What the devil's another ship doing out here and why aren't we landing?" "I wouldn't know, sir," said the young officer. His manner toward Bordman was quite changed. "I do know the Skipper came in expecting to land by the landing-grid, sir. He was told to stand off. He's as much surprised as you are, sir." The wall-speaker said crisply: "_Hear this! Gravity returning! Gravity returning!_" And weight came back. Bordman was ready for it this time and took it casually. He looked at the speaker and it said nothing more. He nodded to the young man. "I suppose I'd better get in the boat. No change in that arrangement, anyhow!" He crawled through the blister door and wormed his way into the landing boat, one designed for a more modern ship, and excessively inconvenient in such an outmoded launching-device. Barnes crawled in after him. He dogged the blister door from the inside, closed the boat port and dogged it, and flapped a switch. "Excuse me, sir. I'm to take you down." "Ready for departure," he said into a microphone. A dial on the instrument-board flicked half-way to zero. It stopped there. Seconds passed. A green light glowed. The young officer said: "All tight!" The needle darted a quarter-way further over, and then began to descend slowly. The blister was being pumped empty of air. Presently another light glowed. "Ready for launching," said the young officer briskly.