Joining air locks in space was at best a ticklish business, but with the added hazard of the meteors, Socrates did not know if it could be done. He only knew one thing. It had to be done. Norma's ship could have been a derelict for all the activity it showed, and while it had been pelted thus far only with smaller stones, one big rock would be more than enough to prove fatal.
They crept forward slowly, it seemed, inches at a time—and three times he had almost locked the two ships together, but at the last moment he had to swing away. The action would force the other ship back as well, and a massive chunk of cosmic debris would zoom through the void between them. Close....
He locked them together finally, and then, vaguely, he remembered running for the airlock. He found it, pulled the catch and opened Norma's lock from the outside. He stood for a moment within her ship.
She was slumped over the pilot chair in her spacesuit. He ran to her and lifted her across his shoulder, heading back for the lock. Then he was through it and Norma sat on the floor, partly conscious, in his own ship. He ran forward to the controls, pushing aside Mrs. Entwhistle—who had fallen across both chairs, breaking her strap in the process.
He fired all the aft rockets at once, blasting straight up towards the top of the ring.
In seconds they were clear, but not before he had seen a huge, almost spherical meteor grind into and through Norma's ship....
