getting faint. Any last requests from me? Well,
one favor maybe. Pick up my body some day with another rocket.... Yeah,
it'll stay preserved up here in this deep-freeze of space.... Thanks,
sir.... Can't hear you much now. Going out of range. Give Betty my
fondest. You know, the blonde.... Well, sir--goodbye now."

Dan was glad that Rough Rock's radio voice faded to a whispery
nothingness. It wasn't easy to stay casual now. There was nothing more
to say, really, and he didn't want to hear any more crying from the CO.
The Old Man had sounded almost hysterical. He wanted just to be alone
with his thoughts now, making his final peace with the universe....

He checked the gauge with his watch--ninety minutes of oxygen to zero.
Or, he thought with a grin, eternity minus ninety minutes.

He was beginning to have trouble breathing. But it was awesomely grand,
watching the sweep of Earth beneath him, the procession of dots that
were islands strung across the Pacific South Seas like a necklace of
green beads. He was still within radio range of ships below at sea. Yet
he didn't contact them. He had nothing to say, like a ghost in the sky.

Idly, he kept pitching loose stones, watching their rifle-like speed
away from him. Again a phenomenon of the weak gravity of the moonlet.
Actually, he was able to pick up a boulder ten feet across and heave it
away with ease. _We who are about to die amuse ourselves_, he thought.
Then, because a thread of stubborn hope still clung in a corner of his
mind, he got an idea. It had lurked just beyond his mental grasp for
some time now. Something significant....

Abruptly, face alight, Dan switched on his radio and contacted a ship
below, asking them to relay him to Rough Rock with their more powerful
transmitter.

"Ahoy, Rough Rock! Stop adding up my insurance, Colonel! I'm coming
back.... No, sir, I haven't gone out of my head, sir. It's so simple
it's a laugh, sir.... See you in a few hours, sir!"

And he did.

Dan grinned when they hauled his dripping form from the sea. Aboard the
search plane they cut him out of the space suit to which was still
attached his emergency twin parachute. But his helmet was gone, ripped
loose, for Dan had been breathing fresh Earth air during the long
parachute descent.

They stared at him as at a dead man come alive.

"Impossible to escape?" He chuckled, repeating their babble. "That's
what _I_ thought too, until I remembered those data tables on gravi