The room pressure was still up, but Mumbly Pegg, the near-victim, was pale clear up to his disordered shock of red hair. Kalmus’ stoop-shouldered friend kept mumbling how close he had come to being killed, a mannerism that had gained him his nickname. He talked incessantly to himself, neither getting a reply from anyone nor expecting any. Rock found holes in opposite sides of the room where the meteorite had hurtled through. The holes were only about pea-sized and were scorched around the edges. The automatic sealing compound would keep the air in the ship from leaking out temporarily, but a permanent repair would have to be made. “The hull’s got to be soldered from the outside,” Rock told Kalmus. “Some of the boys and I will go outside and take care of it.” Shep and Johnny offered to go with Rock, and the three put on pressure suits. Then they took up their firing equipment and prepared to enter the air-lock tunnel leading outside. Before unscrewing the hatch, Rock took in hand one of the safety mooring lines that was fastened to the edge of the hatch. “These safety lines aren’t the best I’ve ever seen,” Rock commented, as he observed some worn places in the nylon. “Kalmus must have had these given to him.” “Maybe he wants to get rid of us,” Shep said, half-seriously. The boys hooked the safety lines to their suits, then climbed out the circular hatch into raw space itself. They still wore magnetic shoes to counteract their weightlessness and enable them to walk. The boys took one moment to feast their eyes on the brilliant fields of star dust that surrounded them like a great dome. Spellbound by all the vastness, Rock was comforted by the solid feel of the big round globe beneath their feet. He looked at the long narrow stem that jutted out the back of the sphere and held the smaller shielded ball of the screened-off atomic power plant. The engines were still idle; they would be until it was time to spin the ship around and blast away forward to slow the ship down a few weeks from now. “Look at Earth over there at ‘7 o’clock,’” Shep said. “It’s just like a fuzzy, unripe peach!” “Kind of makes you homesick, doesn’t it?” Rock said a little wistfully. They went over to one of the meteorite holes and knelt down. The bright fire leaped like a hot bar from Rock’s cutting torch, reddening the metal of the hull almost immediately. “How long is this going to take?” Johnny asked worriedly. “I want to get back inside. I don’t trust these dilapidated safety lines!” “I’m beginning to regret I brought you fellows along on this thing,” Rock said thoughtfully. “Kalmus got me so excited about the expedition that I guess I didn’t really consider the risk we were taking by venturing into space on our own. There are so many things that could go wrong.”