was probably able to miss
things in our way, but failed to compensate afterwards and bring us back
to course. Now--"

Suddenly Ralph dived for the controls. The throbbing rockets of the
Gormann '87 had not responded to the radar warning. They were rocketing
on toward the sargasso, rapidly, dangerously.

"Hold on to something!" Ralph hollered, and punched full power in the
left rockets and breaking power in the right forward rockets
simultaneously, attempting to stand the Gormann '87 on its head and
fight off the deadly gravitational attraction of the sargasso.

The Gormann '87 shuddered like something alive and Ralph felt himself
thrust to the left and forward violently. His head struck the radar
screen and, as if mocking him the radar bell clanged its warning. He
thought he heard Diane scream. Then he was trying to stand, but the
gravity of sudden acceleration gripped him with a giant hand and he
slumped back slowly, aware of a wetness seeping from his nose, his
ears--

All of space opened and swallowed him and he went down, trying to reach
for Diane's hand. But she withdrew it and then the blackness, like some
obscene mouth as large as the distance from here to Alpha Centauri,
swallowed him.

* * * * *

"Are you all right, Diane?" he asked.

He was on his knees. His head ached and one of his legs felt painfully
stiff, but he had crawled over to where Diane was down, flat on her
back, behind the pilot chair. He found the water tank unsprung and
brought her some and in a few moments she blinked her eyes and looked at
him.

"Cold," she said.

He had not noticed it, but he was still numb and only half conscious,
half of his faculties working. It _was_ cold. He felt that now. And he
was giddy and growing rapidly more so--as if they did not have
sufficient oxygen to breathe.

Then he heard it. A slow steady hissing, probably the sound feared most
by spacemen. Air escaping.

Diane looked at him. "For God's sake, Ralph," she cried. "Find it."

He found it and patched it--and was numb with the cold and barely
conscious when he had finished. Diane came to him and squeezed his hand
and that was the first time they had touched since they had left the
asteroid. Then they rested for a few moments and drank some of the
achingly cold water from the tank and got up and went to the viewport.
They had known it, but confirmation was necessary. They looked outside.

They were within the sa