ght
from the start they cut their food ration--a good thing, because one
month went, and then two, as near as they could figure. Cripes, how much
longer could they last?

Often they actually encouraged their minds to create illusions. Frank
would hold his body stiff, and look at the stars. After a while he would
get the soothing impression that he was swimming on his back in a lake,
and was looking up at the night sky.

Mostly, they were out of the regular radio channels. But sometimes,
because of the movement of distant bubb clusters that must be kept in
touch, they heard music and news briefly, again. They heard ominous
reports from the ever more populous Earth. Now it was about areas of
ocean to become boundaried and to be "farmed" for food. Territorial
disputes were now extending far beyond the land. Once more, the weapons
were being uncovered. Of course there were repercussions out here. Ceres
Station was beaming pronouncements, too--rattling the saber.

Nelsen and Ramos listened avidly because it was life, because it was
contact with lost things, because it was not dead silence.

Their own tribulations deepened.

"Cripes but my feet stink!" Ramos once laughed. "They must be rotten.
They're sore, and they itch something awful, and I can't scratch them,
or change my socks, even. The fungus, I guess. Just old athlete's foot."

"The stuff is crawling up my legs," Nelsen growled.

They knew that the Kuzaks, maybe Two-and-Two, Reynolds, Gimp, Storey,
must be trying to call them. They kept listening in their helmet-phones.
But this time Frank Nelsen knew that he'd gotten himself a real haystack
of enormity in which to double for a lost needle. The slender beams
could comb it futilely and endlessly, in the hope of a fortunate
accident. Only once they heard, "Nelsen! Ra..." The beam swept on. It
could have been Joe Kuzak's voice. But inevitably, somewhere, there had
to be a giving up point for the searchers.

"This is where I came in," Nelsen said bitterly. "Damn these beam
systems that are so delicate and important!"

They did pick up the voices of scattered asteroid-hoppers, talking
cautiously back and forth to each other, far away. "... Got me
pinpointed, Ed? Coming in almost empty, this trip. Not like the last...
Stake me to a run into Pallastown...?" Most of such voices sounded
regular, friendly.

Once they heard wild laughter, and what could have been a woman's
scream. But it could have been other things,