"Why, that's right--I never even thought about it--I was so busy studying that thing out there! I suppose I've got used to it already?" "Sure--you're one of us now. I knew you would be. Well, let's go places and do things! You'd better put on a suit, too, so you can stand in the air-lock and handle the line." They donned the heavily insulated, heated suits, and Stevens snapped the locking plugs of the drag line into their sockets upon the helmets. "Hear me?" he asked. "Sound-disks all x?" "All x." "On the radio--all x?" "All x." "I tested your tanks and heaters--they're all x. But you'll have to test...." "I know the ritual by heart, Steve. It's been in every show in the country for the last year, but I didn't know you had to go through it every time you went out-of-doors! Halves, number one all x, two all x, three all x...." "Quit it!" he snapped. "You aren't testing those valves! That check-up is no joke, guy. These suits are complicated affairs, and some parts are apt to get out of order. You see, a thing to give you fresh air at normal pressure and to keep you warm in absolute space can't be either simple or fool-proof. They've worked on them for years, but they're pretty crude yet. They're tricky, and if one goes sour on you, out in space, it's just too bad--you're lucky to get back alive. A lot of men are still out there somewhere because of the sloppy check-ups." "'Scuse it, please--I'll be good," and the careful checking and testing of every vital part of the space-suits went on. Satisfied at last that the armor was spaceworthy, Stevens picked up the coils of drag-line, built of a non-metallic fiber which could retain its flexibility and strength in the bitter cold of outer space, and led the girl into the air-lock. "Heavens, Steve! It's perfectly stupendous, and grinding around worse than the wreckage of the _Arcturus_ was when I wouldn't let you climb up it--why, I thought comets were _little_, and hardly massive at all!" exclaimed the girl. "This is little, compared to any regular planet or satellite or even to the asteroids. There's only a few cubic kilometers of matter there, and, as I said before, it's a decidedly unusual comet. You know the game?" "I've got it--and believe me, I'll yank you back here a lot faster than you can jump over there if any one of those lumps starts to fall on you! Is this drag line long enough?" "Yes, I've got a hundred meters here, and it's only fifty meters over there to where I'm going. So long," and with a light thrust of his feet, he dove head foremost across the intervening space, a heavy pike held out ahead of him. Straight as a bullet he floated toward his objective, a jagged chunk many yards in diameter, taking the shock of his landing by sliding along the pike-handle as its head struck the mass.