dies of the two men already
half out of sight and looking not quite human. There was no sound save
that of his own breath and the faint hum of the radio phone tucked in
his helmet.

He was firmly attached to the ship by a long nylon rope which he hooked
to rings set on the outer shell. He made his way toward the wide rounded
nose of the ship. In one hand he carried a bucket of a liquid plastic
resembling tar in thickness and consistency. With a brush in the other
hand he would stop--held to the surface by magnetic soles--and smear the
plastic protective surfacing over the little pits and pockmarks that now
marred the surface of the once spotless ship. The work was not hard, and
shortly became a routine which he found did not require much
concentration.

It was dip and smear, in a steady rhythmic motion. Haines was working
out of sight on a more complex repair job which involved welding a sheet
of metal over a badly beaten and sprung section. Ferrati was on the
opposite side of the ship.

As he worked, Burl watched the stars, and every now and then was
rewarded by the sight of a moving spark of light--an asteroid or meteor.
He could see mighty Jupiter ahead--a wide disc of white and yellow,
faintly belted with gray and pale blue bands. The famous red spot was
not visible. Four of the planet's twelve attendant satellites strung out
alongside it, and he recognized them as the big ones discovered by
Galileo with his first telescope: Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
The other eight were tiny, and probably would not be visible until they
were right on top of Jupiter, though he supposed that Russell Clyde
could probably pick them out now by telescopic sightings.

Burl could hear in his radio the sound of someone whistling softly, and
supposed it was Ferrati. There was a short cut-in as Lockhart called a
time-shift on the general intercom. A brief exchange followed between
Caton in the Zeta-ring chamber of the ship's nose and the colonel, with
the information that Caton was coming down into the living section.

Then, after a brief period of silence, Burl heard a series of odd noises
on his phones, something went bump, and the sound faded. He was now on
the nose of the ship itself, the wide mushrooming surface beneath his
feet, and Jupiter high over his head. Bending over, about to smear a dab
of plastic on a tiny pitted mark, he suddenly felt himself gripped and
pulled.

Caught by surprise, he jerked upward, the brush