"Spin 'em!" Gimp shouted. "Don't forget to spin 'em for centrifuge-gravity and stability!"
And so they did, each gripping the rigging at their bubb rims, and using the minute but accumulative thrust of the shoulder ionics of their Archers, to provide the push. The inflated rings turned like wheels with perfect bearings. In the all but frictionless void, they could go on turning for decades, without additional impetus.
"We've made it—we're Out Here—we're all right!" Ramos was shouting with a fierce exultation.
"Shut up, Ramos!" Frank Nelsen yelled back. "Don't ever say that, too soon. Look around you!"
Storey and Reynolds were still struggling with their bubbs. They had been delayed by trying to quiet Dave Lester, who now floated in a drugged stupor, lashed to his blastoff drum.
Slowly, pushed by their shoulder ionics, Gimp, Ramos and Frank Nelsen drifted over to see what they could do for Lester.
He was vaguely conscious, his eyes were glassy, his mouth drooled watery vomit.
"What do you want us to do, Les?" Frank asked gently. "We could put you back in one of the rockets. You'd be brought back to the spaceport, when they are guided back by remote control."
"I don't know!" Lester wailed in a hoarse voice. "Fellas—I don't know! A little falling is all right... But it goes on all the time. I can't stand it! But if I'm sent back—I can't ever live with myself!..."
Frank felt the intense anguish of trying to decide somebody [p. 47] else's quandary that might be a life or death matter which would surely involve them all. Damn, weak-kneed kid! How had he ever gotten so far?