lking in magnetic-soled slippers on the steel decks of the space
platform. Her eyes were very bright. She said:

"Mr. Cochrane, hadn't you better come look at Earth out of the quartz
Earthside windows?"

"Why?" demanded Cochrane bitterly. "If it wasn't that I'd have to hold
onto something with both hands, in order to do it, I'd be kicking
myself. Why should I want to do tourist stuff?"

"So," said Babs, "so later on you can tell when a writer or a scenic
designer tries to put something over on you in a space platform show."

Cochrane grimaced.

"In theory, I should. But do you realize what all this is about? I just
learned!" When Babs shook her head he said sardonically, "We are on the
way to the Moon to stage a private production out of sheer cruelty.
We're hired to rob a happy man of the luxury of feeling sorry for
himself. We're under Holden's orders to cure a man of being a crackpot!"

Babs hardly listened. She was too much filled with the zest of being
where she'd never dared hope to be able to go.

"I wouldn't want to be cured of being a crackpot," protested Cochrane,
"if only I could afford such a luxury! I'd--"

Babs said urgently:

"You'll have to hurry, really! They told me it starts in ten minutes, so
I came to find you right away."

"What starts?"

"We're in eclipse now," explained Babs, starry-eyed. "We're in the
Earth's shadow. In about five minutes we'll be coming out into sunlight
again, and we'll see the new Earth!"

"Guarantee that it will be a new Earth," Cochrane said morosely, "and
I'll come. I didn't do too well on the old one."

But he followed her in all the embarrassment of walking on
magnetic-soled shoes in a total absence of effective gravity. It was
quite a job simply to start off. Without precaution, if he merely tried
to march away from where he was, his feet would walk out from under him
and he'd be left lying on his back in mid-air. Again, to stop without
putting one foot out ahead for a prop would mean that after his feet
paused, his body would continue onward and he would achieve a
full-length face-down flop. And besides, one could not walk with a
regular up-and-down motion, or in seconds he would find his feet
churning emptiness in complete futility.

Cochrane tried to walk, and then irritably took a hand-rail and hauled
himself along it, with his legs trailing behind him like the tail of a
swimming mermaid. He thought of the simile and was not impressed by his
own di