A gentle shove against the side of Telstar was all it took. I got it straight, which was all that counted. My drift was slow, and I was a good five minutes making the twenty-foot crossing. But a handhold came within reach, and I worked my way back into the cabin and climbed in without shutting the hatch. "Don't try that again," I cautioned him. "This thing weighs ten thousand pounds, and that bird half as much. Even at a couple feet a second, you can crush me to jelly between them, even if you don't burn one or the other of us to a crisp." "Roger," Sid said, not quite so emotionlessly. "Are we ready to move?" "What for?" I asked him. "Until we get me some steering fuel, I'm useless." "I thought we'd abort this mission before we were through," he sneered. "Not so fast. You've got the same rig on your suit. All we have to do is put your fuel tanks on my suit." "Are you nuts?" he demanded. "What's the matter with it? Those tanks aren't welded to you, and I've got tools." I could see him shake his head in the dim light from the instrument panel. "You know those fuels ignite on contact with each other," he pointed out. "If we spill a couple drops of each in here, and they vaporize, we'll blow this kite to pieces!" "Then we'll get outside to make the switch," I insisted. "It won't hurt anything if a few grams burn up out there, will it, with nothing to confine the expansion." "But then I won't be able to come after you if anything goes wrong," he pointed out. "No dice." "You're grasping, Stein," I growled. "At this stage I'm in charge around here. I'll take my chances on getting back." * * * * * With the cabin light on I went as far as possible in dismounting both our tanks. After a couple rehearsals to make sure that at least one of us would always have a glove on a handhold, we both climbed out the hatch and I made the switch. Just as Sid suspected, we spilled a few drops. They vaporized, and again as we had feared, combined in what would have been an explosion in a confined space. The soundless flash, dim but real, said we had released quite a little energy uniformly all around us. I never felt a thing except a faint warmth from infrared through my helmet. Best of all, my jets worked. We both climbed back aboard _Nelly_, dogged the hatch, and started after Telstar Two. The second bird was about fifteen thousand miles ahead of us. I slept most of the time, for after Sid gave us a jolt of added velocity, we had to settle down to about six hours of drifting. I woke up as the belt cut me when he fired the retros. We went through the radar and searchlight bit, and had the devil's own time finding our bird. But at last I got the flash of reflection and went to work.