ce on which the wire had been
bracketed, his tool kit vomited flashlight, wrenches and screwdrivers,
leaving him in total darkness. His cursing was regular, now, monotonous
and uninspired. There was another pencil light in the kit, snapped
tightly to the case, and Mac reached for the whole business. The spare
light was a maintenance problem in itself. Question: How to retrieve a
fountain pen sized object, when it's held by a small snap and the
retriever is encumbered by three pairs of arctic mittens?

Mac saw his errant flashlight out of the corner of his eye, its beam
fastened on a collapsed screw driver while both swam sluggishly toward
the inspection ladder. He located the pencil light and jerked it loose,
holding the short wire and cutters in his other hand.

This, Mac knew, was the crucial point. If he could splice the wire
hanging in front of him, _Valier_ would once more be in perfect shape.
He would have welcomed an extra hand or two, as he straddled a brace and
shoved the tiny flash between his headpiece and shoulder fabric. The
wire should be stripped, he knew, but he hadn't the tools. They were
scarcely ten feet from him, but could have rested atop the Kremlin for
all the good they did him. He got most of the strands of one end of wire
shoved into a splice lug, and called it good enough. It was like trying
to thread a needle whose eye was deeper than it was wide, while in a
diving suit, using the business end of a paintbrush to start the thread.

He withdrew one hand and searched the kit for friction tape. It might be
mentioned that an insulating tape which would be adhesive at minus two
hundred degrees centigrade yet keep its properties at plus one thousand,
was the near culmination of chemical science. Silicon plastic research
provided the adhesive, an inert gum which changed almost none through a
fantastic range of temperatures and pressures. The tape Mac used to
insure his connection had an asbestos base, with adhesive gum insinuated
into the tape. He wrapped the wire tightly, then bound it to the brace.
He noticed his visor fogging up and felt a faint, giddy sensation.
Anoxemia! He let the tape drift as he reached for his regulator dial.
_What a fool he was_, he thought, _to starve his lungs_. He turned the
dial to emergency maximum and gulped precious liters of oxygen-helium
mixture. The gauge showed a store of the gas which might possibly be
enough to last him, if nothing else went wrong; perhaps ten