A vast doughnut, twenty-five miles in diameter, the space station stood with no apparent motion a thousand miles above the surface of the earth. It floated in a sea of scintillating stars like diamonds scattered upon the blackest velvet.
"Jim, what's the matter?" John Callahan's voice grated in Britten's headpiece.
"Glover's line broke loose," Britten gasped. "He's gone."
"What!"
"I'm coming back in. Give me a hand."
Britten began the long crawl back to the entrance port, his nerves too shattered to attempt it standing up. He was several yards away when another spacesuited figure emerged from the port and helped him stagger the rest of the way. Inside the airlock he collapsed.
In a small room within a large hospital the two men sat talking. It was a featureless room with pale green walls, containing a desk, two soft chairs, and a leather couch. The doctor, middle-aged, inconspicuous, wearing glasses, a small moustache, and a gray suit, sat in one chair. Facing him in the other chair, Jim Britten, young, lean, and visibly depressed, wore pajamas and a hospital robe.
"You've been a sick boy," Morris Wolf told Jim Britten in a conversational tone.
"I guess so." Britten scratched at the arm of his chair and fingered the sleeve of his gown.