When the freighter had gone, pulling ahead at one G acceleration, the mine began to spin slowly, making the dead man seem to be searching for something--or seeing some far-off horror that caused his eyes to bulge out. After a while there was a solid click from the interior of the space mine. A soft whine rose upward toward a supersonic pitch. Small holes appeared in the black surface of the globe, and small shapes crept out. Some of them were under the man, pushing at him. But the ropes held. The mine didn't spin any more. The dead man seemed to have already forgotten the freighter, looking back the way it had come, waiting for what was to come next. Imperceptibly it froze over with a microfilm of crystalline ice, so that new stars seemed to spring into being. And that's the way Stella saw it. She hadn't taken Larry seriously about the space mine, and was only trying to catch her first glimpse of her freighter. It didn't seem real. It was a face that looked somehow familiar, with two thick white spikes protruding from its nostrils like mockeries of tusks. A thought flashed through her mind that Larry Jackson had figured out some dirty trick to scare her with. She didn't have much time to think before she knew that what she was seeing was real. Its position was such that it should have passed ten miles to the side. It started to. The marble monster with tusks didn't turn to follow her. Then three things happened. Stella recognized the man. He was the pilot she had assigned to the junk ship. Stella saw the sphere he was tied to. And fire shot out from that circular void. Her pilot swung toward her again and rushed at her like the figurehead on the prow of an ancient watership. "Larry!" Stella screamed into the radio. "I see it," his voice answered her. "Get on your space-suit and jump out. Turn on your suit radio so I can find you afterwards. Every second counts!" In the airlock with the shell door open, she looked into bottomless space and drew back. Then she closed her eyes and leaped. When she opened them again there were no stars, only bright white lines that all went in the same direction, and for an instant a bright yellow splotch that was like a gold band circling her far out. She knew what the white lines were. She pressed the right button on her chest, and pressure seized her shoulders gently. It was the suit gyro, and after a while it slowed the lines until they became stars. She remembered then to turn on her radio, feeling panic grip her at the thought that maybe Larry wouldn't find her. The fire from his rockets was small, far away. That's all she could see other than the stars. And her stomach was telling her there was no gravity to hold it in position. Then she heard Larry in her suit radio. "I've got you beamed, Stella. I'll follow down slowly. Are you all right?" "Yes," she said, anger and frustration in her voice. "I can see you now," Larry said. * * * * *