al
globe, and the blackness was behind it. They were a quarter of a mile
away. The distance diminished.

A thin straight line seemed to grow out toward them. There was a small,
bulb-like object at its end. It reached out farther than was at all
plausible. Nothing so slender should conceivably reach so far without
bending of its own weight. But of course it had no weight here. It was a
plastic flexible hose with air pressure in it. It groped for the
spaceship.

The four in the ship held their breaths.

There was a loud, metallic _clank!_

Then it was possible to feel the ship being pulled toward the Platform
by the magnetic grapple. It was a landing-line. It was the means by
which the ship would be docked in the giant lock which had been built to
receive it.

As they drew near, they saw the joints of the plating of the Platform.
They saw rivets. There was the huge, 30-foot doorway with its valves
swung wide. Their searchlight beam glared into it. They saw the metal
floor, and the bulging plastic sidewalls, restrained by nets. They saw
the inner lock-door. It seemed that men should be visible to welcome
them. There were none.

The airlock swallowed them. They touched against something solid. There
were more clankings. They seemed to crunch against the metal
floor--magnetic flooring-grapples. Then, in solid contact with the
substance of the Platform, they heard the sounds of the great outer
doors swinging shut. They were within the artificial satellite of Earth.
It was bright in the lock, and Joe stared out the cabin ports at the
quilted sides. There was a hissing of air, and he saw a swirling mist,
and then the bulges of the sidewall sagged. The air pressure gauge was
spinning up toward normal sea-level air pressure.

Joe threw the ready lever of the steering rockets to _Off_. "We're
landed."

There was silence. Joe looked about him. The other three looked queer.
It would have seemed natural for them to rejoice on arriving at their
destination. But somehow they didn't feel that they had.

Joe said wrily, "It seems that we ought to weigh something, now we've
got here. So we feel queer that we don't. Shoes, Mike?"

Mike peeled off the magnetic-soled slippers from their place on the
cabin wall. He handed them out and opened the door. A biting chill came
in it. Joe slipped on the shoe-soles with their elastic bands to hold
them. He stepped out the door.

He didn't land. He floated until he reached the sidewall.