I didn't pay any attention. I tried my arms again, and they reached out all right. It was a good job of taping.
She pushed me away and stood up. "Careful of your ribs, mister," she warned. "Come on, you don't belong in here anyway—this is the women's side."
I hunched myself into my jacket and followed her through the door and down a short passage which led into a sort of utility room in the midsection of the blister. One end was taken up with shelves and cases of food and other supplies, a diatherm cooker, distillation unit, mess table and the like; at the other, to the sides of the air lock, were two or three desks with books and papers. One of the desks held a periscreen which reflected the star-speckled black of space and a small bright ball which was the distant sun. A row of thick glass portholes at each end of the room let in a fair amount of light.
Out in the center of the floor were several chairs which looked almost comfortable, and a large table with a ping-pong net on it. The thought of trying to predict the behavior of a ping-pong ball under gravity of point-o-two or thereabouts made me dizzy again.
I sat down in the easiest-looking chair and Betty took a seat opposite me. The solemn look was on her face again.
"I should have mentioned it before," she apologized, "but I am glad to see you, Tom. And amazed, of course. What happened to your job at Translunar?"
"Translunar doesn't like me any more. I took the prize money to fit out the Aspera and sneered at the job."
"Oh, Tom!" I liked the way she said it this time. "Then you are free-lancing?"
"Free is the word for it. The list they put me on is black as the night side of Pluto. No outfit in space would hire me for a swamper after this. And you can't space-rat without a ship to rat in. As a matter of fact, I have a great future behind me. All because I had a great idea."