he would not communicate it to her as
he took the spacesuits down from their rack and began to climb into one.
"They don't think it's anything but the ships, though. It started with a
few ships. Then more. And more. Trapped by mutual gravity. It got bigger
and bigger and I think there are almost a thousand derelicts here now.
There's talk of blasting them clear, of salvaging them for metals and so
on. But so far the planetary governments haven't co-operated."

"But how did the first ships get here?"

"It doesn't make a hell of a lot of difference. One theory is ships
only, and maybe a couple of hunks of meteoric debris in the beginning.
Another theory says there may be a particularly heavy small asteroid in
this maze of wrecks somewhere--you know, superheavy stuff with the atoms
stripped of their electrons and the nuclei squeezed together, weighing
in the neighborhood of a couple of tons per square inch. That could
account for the beginning, but once the thing got started, the wrecked
ships account for more wrecked ships and pretty soon you have--a
sargasso."

Diane nodded and said, "You can put my helmet on now."

"All right. Don't forget to check the radio with me before we go out. If
the radio doesn't work, then you stay here. Because I want us in
constant radio contact if we're both out there. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir, captain," she said, and grinned. It was her old grin. He had
not seen her grin like that for a long time. He had almost forgotten
what that grin was like. It made her face seem younger and prettier, as
he had remembered it from what seemed so long ago but was only three
years. It was a wonderful grin and he watched it in the split-second
which remained before he swung the heavy helmet up and in place over her
shoulders.

Then he put on his own helmet awkwardly and fingered the outside radio
controls. "Hear me?" he said.

"I can hear you." Her voice was metallic but very clear through the suit
radios.

"Then listen. There shouldn't be any danger of getting lost. I'll leave
a light on inside the ship and we'll see it through the ports. It will
be the only light, so whatever you do, don't go out of range. As long as
you can always see it, you'll be O.K. Understand?"

"Right," she said as they both climbed into the Gormann '87's airlock
and waited for the pressure to leave it and the outer door to swing out
into space. "Ralph? I'm a little scared, Ralph."

"That's all right," he said.