"Nothing. It's nothing at all. Just get back into your helmet and I'll show you what the inside of the crepe ring is like. Go ahead, Mrs. Entwhistle. It isn't everyone who gets a chance to see the inside of the crepe ring...." * * * * * The darkness of space was pleasant by comparison. Here there were vague flitting shadows, the half-seen images of huge masses of rock and metal hurtling through space in their eternal revolution around Saturn. One would be more than enough to crush their little ship--and Norma's.... Socrates hardly had time to think of it, hardly had time to hear Mrs. Entwhistle whimpering with each sudden burst of acceleration. On and off overhead the red and the green lights winked, and Socrates played on the firing pedals like an organist, trying to blast their way clear of the unseen rocks all about them. Once a yellow light winked and he knew that one of the meteoric pebbles had streaked through their ship: it now was an airless place, and only their flimsy spacesuits stood between them and the cold, beckoning void of space. Someone was shouting, and at first he thought it was Mrs. Entwhistle.... Norma! "Hey, Smitty!" "Yes. Yes, Norma." "I can see you back there. See me?" "Ahead a bit? Yeah, I see you." Her ship flashed once and then was gone in the obscuring darkness, but it flashed again, and this time he probed out with a beam of radar and he held it. "I'm glad you see me, Smitty, because I think you'll have to come and get me. I'm scared. My ship's a mess, gutted with holes. This place is--awful." Socrates muttered to himself and pushed the aft pedals to the floor. Mrs. Entwhistle was slammed back in her seat and Socrates could see that she was trying to scream, only she couldn't quite make it. Only the green light flashed now, because the red-warning signal remained bright: it lit the way to Norma. A score of miles, but their zigzag course would make it more like several hundred--if they got there. Socrates' insides began to hurt from the acceleration. His feet were numb from working the pedals. Green light, step down, right, left, again, green, aft pedal, aft pedal!... Socrates soon realized that he was talking to himself. * * * * * Joining air locks in space was at best a ticklish business, but with the added hazard of the meteors, Socrates did not know if it could be done. He only knew one thing. It _had_ to be done. Norma's ship could have been a derelict for all the activity it showed, and while it had been pelted thus far only with smaller stones, one big rock would be more than enough to prove fatal. They crept forward slowly, it seemed, inches at a time--and three times he had almost locked the two ships together, but at the last moment he had to swing away. The action would force the other ship back as well, and a massive chunk of cosmic debris would zoom through the void between them. Close....