A day came back to him. He had been a country boy, remote even from the collective farms, but once when he was seven years old he sent in a winning Party slogan (he didn't know better then) and was awarded a trip to Europe. Somehow he had entered alone that museum called Notre Dame de Paris; and when he stood in its soaring twilight he realized how helplessly small and young he was.
He cut the engines. For a moment free fall clutched at his stomach, then a renewed pressure swiveled his chair about in the gymbals. The scout boat was being hauled around Zolotoy, but downward: they were going to some specific place on the planet for some specific purpose.
He looked through his loneliness at Ekaterina, and found her staring at him. Angrily, she jerked her face away, reached out and grasped the hand of Ilya Grushenko.
CHAPTER IV
On the way, the humans decompressed their atmosphere until it approximated that of Zolotoy. There was enough oxygen to support lethargic movement, but they donned small compression pumps, capacitor-powered, worn on the back and feeding to a nose-piece. Their starved lungs expanded gratefully. Otherwise they dressed in winter field uniforms and combat helmets. But when Ekaterina reached for her pistol, Grushenko took it from her.
"Would you conquer them with this, Comrade Saburov?" he asked.
She flushed. Her words came muffled through the tenuous air: "It might give us a chance to break free, if we must escape."
"They could overhaul this boat in ten seconds. And ... escape where? To interstellar space again? I say here we stop, live or die. Even from here, it will be a weary way to Earth."
"Forget about Earth," said Holbrook out of tautness and despair. "No one is returning to Earth before Novaya is strong enough to stand off a Soviet fleet. Maybe you like to wear the Party's collar. I don't!"