Haddix was leaning against him, their two bulky suits in sudden, dangerous contact. Alan could feel himself slipping over the edge. Yelling now, his own voice deafening him inside the glassite helmet, Alan groped with clumsy, gauntletted hands for Haddix. He clutched the shoulder of the man's spacesuit, then felt himself tumbling over the edge into the tube.
There was a jolting sensation above him. He was sliding down the inflated body of Haddix's spacesuit, sliding, sliding. He wrapped his arms about the legs of the suit and clung there. Below his dangling feet was the white line and the word CAUTION painted there. Immediately below that, the space-warp itself.
"Let go of me!" Haddix screamed. "You'll kill us both."
Alan looked up. Haddix was clinging to the lip of the tube with both hands. Suddenly, Haddix began rocking back and forth in an attempt to dislodge Alan.
"Don't try it," Alan said. "All I've got to do is yank at your legs a little harder and we'll both fall down there."
"I can't climb up with you hanging on like that. I—I can't hold on much longer. This warp-station's at Earth normal gravity, Tremaine. My hands are slipping!"
"Listen to me," Alan said. "We can still get out of this. I can climb up your back, then pull you up after me."
"How do I know you will?"
"You don't. If we just hang here, we're as good as dead." Alan could feel the strain in his arms as he clung to Haddix's suit. For Haddix, the strain was double. Haddix could not be expected to hang there more than a few moments.
"I'm coming up," Alan said. "Don't try anything foolish."