"You said we only have ten hours. I want to help you."
All at once, the airlock swung out. Space yawned at them, black enormous, the silent ships, the dead sargasso ships, floating slowly by, eternally, unhurried....
"Better make it eight hours," Ralph said over the suit radio. "We'd better keep a couple of hours leeway in case I figured wrong. Eight hours and remember, don't get out of sight of the ship's lights and don't break radio contact under any circumstances. These suit radios work like miniature radar sets, too. If anything goes wrong, we'll be able to track each other. It's directional beam radio."
"But what can go wrong?"
"I don't know," Ralph admitted. "Nothing probably." He turned on his suit rockets and felt the sudden surge of power drive him clear of the ship. He watched Diane rocketing away from him to the right. He waved his hand in the bulky spacesuit. "Good luck," he called. "I love you, Diane."
"Ralph," she said. Her voice caught. He heard it catch over the suit radio. "Ralph, we agreed never to—oh, forget it. Good luck, Ralph. Good luck, oh good luck. And I—"
"You what."
"Nothing, Ralph. Good luck."
"Good luck," he said, and headed for the first jumble of space wrecks.