Randy's voice came desperately.
"Hurry, Sammy! Give it to me and get back into the cabin. We won't have time to wait our turns at the air lock.... Right! Now get back in the cabin!"
"How am I doing now, Randy?" McCauley asked calmly. "How's my line of motion?"
"I don't like it!" said Randy fiercely. "It's off to one side! Sammy just brought me all the extra space ropes. He tied them together inside. I'm checking them now. There are four of them."
McCauley said:
"I hate to seem overanxious, but how much will I miss the Platform by?"
"Too much," answered Randy bitterly. "What have you got left that you can throw away to steer by?"
"Eighty pounds of mass," said McCauley with composure. "But I have to wait until the last second."
Silence again. Darkness covered three-quarters of the Earth's strange disk. It was not the darkness of a night on Earth, with trees and plants and men as darker shapes against starlit or moonlit ground or sea. It was the blackness of nothingness, of annihilation.
"You can't stay out much longer, Randy," McCauley said. "I'll have to try it."