ur pockets?"

He thrust his hands once more into the arms of the suit, and felt as
far along his belt as he could. He did manage to reach the usual
position of the standard rocket pistol. The hook was empty.

"Well, that's that!" he groaned. "They didn't forget. I have nothing
to maneuver with."

He pondered worriedly. Perhaps the air--if he dared to waste any, it
would make a small jet. Slow, but he had all the rest of his life!

He settled down to picking at the cord about his thumbs with the tips
of the other fingers in his gauntlets. It seemed possible that he
might in time chew it up to the point where it could be snapped.

The stars streamed slowly past his line of vision as he spun through
the emptiness. Two or three little bits of the cord chipped off and
drifted away. Tremont realized that it was frozen and brittle. He
redoubled his efforts. After a few minutes of clumsy clicking of
fingertips against thumbs, he strained to pull his hands apart.

The cord parted and his arms jerked out to their full spread with such
suddenness that he felt his backbone creak. For a moment, he hung
motionless inside his suit, wondering if he had hurt himself.

Recovering, he groped about, checking for his equipment. He discovered
that nothing had been left. No knife, no rocket pistol, no line with
magnet for securing oneself to a hull.

_Well, at least I can reach the valves of the air tanks_, he reassured
himself.

He watched for the ship, so as to judge his direction. Several minutes
passed before he allowed himself to recognize the truth of his
situation: he could no longer see the gleam of Alpha Centauri on the
hull!

He was already too far out to dare to waste air. He might give away
his last four hours of life just to send himself in the wrong
direction.

"How did I get myself into this?" he groaned.

* * * * *

He set himself to thinking back to his meetings with the others.
Dorothy Stauber had landed from the same starship after passage from
Sol, but he had not become acquainted with her during the trip except
to pass the time of day. He seemed to remember that she had turned up
in the Customs dome to ask his advice on travel....

"Ye-ah!" he growled to himself. "_After_ I phoned to lease a rocket.
She must have known, but how?"

Someone in the shipping office? Well, why not Peters, the pilot? And
then Braigh had come along, pretending to have been on his way back to
Cen