For many minutes he swung the _Forlorn Hope_ in a wide curve approaching
the mountain of metal ever and ever more nearly, then turned to the girl.

"Hold everything, Nadia--power's going off in a minute!" He shut off the
beam; then, noting that they were traveling a trifle faster than the
comet, he applied a small voltage to one dirigible projector. Darting
the beam here and there, he so corrected their flight that they were
precisely stationary in relation to the comet. He then opened his
switches, and the _Forlorn Hope_ hurtled on. Apparently motionless, it
was now a part of Cantrell's Comet, traveling in a stupendous, elongated
ellipse about the Master of our Solar System, the Sun.

"There, ace, who said anything about weight-fiends? I was watching you,
and you never turned a hair that time."

"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-metalli