Socrates hardly had time to think of it, hardly had time to hear Mrs. Entwhistle whimpering with each sudden burst of acceleration. On and off overhead the red and the green lights winked, and Socrates played on the firing pedals like an organist, trying to blast their way clear of the unseen rocks all about them. Once a yellow light winked and he knew that one of the meteoric pebbles had streaked through their ship: it now was an airless place, and only their flimsy spacesuits stood between them and the cold, beckoning void of space.
Someone was shouting, and at first he thought it was Mrs. Entwhistle....
Norma!
"Hey, Smitty!"
"Yes. Yes, Norma."
"I can see you back there. See me?"
"Ahead a bit? Yeah, I see you." Her ship flashed once and then was gone in the obscuring darkness, but it flashed again, and this time he probed out with a beam of radar and he held it.
"I'm glad you see me, Smitty, because I think you'll have to come and get me. I'm scared. My ship's a mess, gutted with holes. This place is—awful."
Socrates muttered to himself and pushed the aft pedals to the floor. Mrs. Entwhistle was slammed back in her seat and Socrates could see that she was trying to scream, only she couldn't quite make it.
Only the green light flashed now, because the red-warning signal remained bright: it lit the way to Norma. A score of miles, but their zigzag course would make it more like several hundred—if they got there. Socrates' insides began to hurt from the acceleration. His feet were numb from working the pedals. Green light, step down, right, left, again, green, aft pedal, aft pedal!... Socrates soon realized that he was talking to himself.