He seemed to consider the explanation complete. He wriggled his arms
into the sleeves and gloves of the suit. He slung the air tanks over
his shoulder and hooked them to the suit.

"I'll be back," he said. "I hope with good news. I've reason to be
hopeful, though, because these Wealdians are very practical men. They
have things all prepared and tidy. I suspect I'll find these ships
with stores of air and fuel, maybe even food, so that if Weald should
manage to make a deal for the stuff stored out here in them, they'd
only have to bring out crews."

He lifted the space helmet down from its rack and put it on. He tested
it, reading the tank air-pressure, power-storage, and other data from
the lighted miniature instruments visible through pinholes above his
eye-level. He fastened a space rope about himself, speaking through
the helmet's opened faceplate.

"If our friends should wake up before I get back," he added, "please
restrain them. I'd hate to be marooned."

He went waddling into the airlock with the coil of space rope over one
vacuum-suited arm. The inner lock door closed behind him. A little
later Maril heard the outer lock open. Then silence.

Murgatroyd whimpered a little. Maril shivered. Calhoun had gone out of
the ship to nothingness. He'd said that what he was looking for, and
what he'd found, was forty-two thousand miles from Weald. One could
imagine falling forty-two thousand miles, where one couldn't imagine
falling a light-year.