"Not to be finicky about it," said McCauley, "that wasn't wise. There was only one chance in ten thousand that anything could happen, but there was no need to take it."
"Yes, sir," said Sammy Breen.
McCauley settled down, three feet from the end of the beam that was to be bolted to the one that needed reaming. Sammy Breen gripped that beam between his thighs and hauled the reamer to his hand. At work on the Platform, in emptiness, a man did not carry things, he towed them on cords. If he let go of any untethered object it might stay where he put it, in mid-space, but it was much more likely to have some small motion relative to his which would make it drift placidly out of reach forever.
Sammy Breen set the reamer in place in the bolt hole and pulled its trigger. It cut metal. But it dragged unreasonably at him, trying to turn him in the direction opposite its own rotation. Tiny chips and metal dust twinkled in the fierce sunshine. They floated away. They would never fall to Earth. Never. The reamer went through and Sammy cut off its power. He tried to pull it out. It stuck.
McCauley watched. He'd made a rule that nobody should do anything in the least out of routine without another man nearby. The three of them did not work together at one spot ordinarily. In the kind of conditions customary here, they'd be hopelessly in each other's way. But he'd issued the order requiring two to be together on any unusual job. Now, having obeyed his own rule that there must be a second man at hand when anything beyond simple bolting was to be done, tact made him keep silent while Sammy did it his own way. Too-close supervision and too-constant instruction can make for inefficiency. Worse, on a job like building the Platform, they can make for friction. McCauley watched without comment. He'd have done this thing differently. But it would be unwise to insist that it be done his way.
Sammy jerked at the reamer, which meant that he also jerked himself at it. He slid along the girder he gripped. McCauley said nothing. He'd criticized Sammy's horse-play a moment earlier. He did not want to make a second criticism now.
Sammy reached out—it would not be true to say that he stood up—and put his foot beside the reamer in the bolt hole. The position gave him leverage. He pulled violently. It was a wholly reasonable, completely natural, thoroughly matter-of-fact action. A man pulling something stuck in a hole braces himself exactly that way to get a strong pull at it. But this was on the Space Platform, where there is no weight.
The reamer gave. It came out abruptly. Sammy Breen shot away from the beam to the full length of his space rope—and the space rope slid off the end of the beam. He was headed for infinity with the reamer in his hand.
McCauley grabbed. He never knew how he managed to make so swift a motion in his clumsy space suit. But he hurled his body forward and snatched at the same instant. He caught the rope. But to reach it he'd had to lose his own leg-grip on the beam. The impetus of Sammy's leap jerked savagely at him. He squeezed his legs together in a frantic effort to hold fast by friction. He tried to turn his toes in to catch hold before he slid completely clear. But the feet of space suits do not pivot laterally so he could not turn them inward. Holding fast to Sammy's space rope, he was jerked inexorably clear and he and Sammy Breen floated away to emptiness together.
It was neither a rapid motion nor a simple one. The jerk had come at an angle rather than straight out. The two of them revolved slowly around each other at the two ends of the rope. McCauley held on grimly, braced for the countervailing tug of his own rope when it tightened.