“Boy, what a place for a sunburn!” Steve said.
“It’s certainly summertime on Sierra!” Sue added.
They watched crewmen in space suits come out of the freighter and begin uncoiling a spool of rope that would stretch between the two ships. Safety lines led from all the men back to the cargo ship.
“There’s almost no gravity at all here,” Mr. Shannon told his son and daughter, “because the asteroid is so small. If the people from the Pole Star—providing there are any alive—didn’t have the rope to hang on to, they might float right off Sierra.”
The children asked to go outside. The three suited up and went out, using safety lines, just in case.
The glare was so strong that they had to lower their darkening glasses over the face part of their helmets. The heat was such that they had to switch on the cooling outfits in their suits. It was strange to see the edge of the asteroid so close, just beyond a fringe of dagger-like peaks. It was like being on a big space raft.
The twins tried walking. They were less than feather-light and it was quite a job for them even to keep upright. Sue decided this wouldn’t be a very good place to spend a summer vacation.
Sue’s cooling outfit made her sneeze. She was lifted right off the ground and her father had to pull her down quickly. She and Steve laughed but they had been scared.
“See, it doesn’t take much to send you sky high!” Mr. Shannon joked, speaking over the radio set which all three of them carried in their space suits.
At last the crewmen, who had been moving so carefully over the ground toward the Pole Star, reached the ship and fastened the rope to it. The outer door of the Pole Star was then opened by someone inside.