e both dressed in gray--your clothes in
particular are almost exactly the color of this armor-plate--so
altogether we stand a good chance of being missed."

"What shall we do now?"

"Nothing whatever--wish we could sleep for a couple of hours, but of
course there's no hope of that. Stretch out here, like that--you can't
rest folded up like an accordion--and I'll lie down diagonally across
the room. There's just room for me that way. That's one advantage of
weightlessness--you can lie down standing on your head, and go to sleep
and like it. But I forgot--you've never been weightless before, have
you? Does it make you sick?"

"Not so much, now, except that I feel awfully weird inside. I was
horribly dizzy and nauseated at first, but it's going away."

* * * * *

"That's good--it makes lots of people pretty sick. In fact, some folks
get awfully sick and can't seem to get used to it at all. It's the
canals in the inner ear that do most of it, you know. However, if you're
as well as that already, you'll be a regular spacehound in half an hour.
I've been weightless for weeks at a stretch, out in the _Sirius_, and
now I've got so I really like it. Here, we'd better keep in touch."
He found her hand and tucked it under his arm. "Stabilize our positions
more, besides keeping us from getting too lonesome, here in the dark,"
he concluded, in a matter-of-fact voice.

"Thanks for saying 'us'--but you would, wouldn't you?" and a wave of
admiration went through her for the real and chivalrous manhood of the
man with whom she had been forced by circumstances to cast her lot.
"How long must we stay here?"

"As long as the air lasts, and I'd like to stay here longer than that.
We don't want to move around any more than we absolutely have to until
their rays are off of us, and we have no way of knowing how long that
will be. Also, we'd better keep still. I don't know what kind of an
audio system they've got, but there's no use taking unnecessary
chances."

"All x--I'm an oyster's little sister," and for many minutes the
two remained motionless and silent. Now and then Nadia twitched and
started at some vague real or imaginary sound--now and then her fingers
tightened upon his biceps--and he pressed her hand with his great arm in
reassurance and understanding. Once a wall of their cell resounded under
the impact of a fierce blow and Stevens instantly threw his arm around
the girl, twisting himself b