again, and we'll see the new Earth!"

"Guarantee that it will be a new Earth," Cochrane said morosely, "and
I'll come. I didn't do too well on the old one."

But he followed her in all the embarrassment of walking on
magnetic-soled shoes in a total absence of effective gravity. It was
quite a job simply to start off. Without precaution, if he merely tried
to march away from where he was, his feet would walk out from under him
and he'd be left lying on his back in mid-air. Again, to stop without
putting one foot out ahead for a prop would mean that after his feet
paused, his body would continue onward and he would achieve a
full-length face-down flop. And besides, one could not walk with a
regular up-and-down motion, or in seconds he would find his feet
churning emptiness in complete futility.

Cochrane tried to walk, and then irritably took a hand-rail and hauled
himself along it, with his legs trailing behind him like the tail of a
swimming mermaid. He thought of the simile and was not impressed by his
own dignity.

Presently Babs halted herself in what was plainly a metal blister in the
outer skin of the platform. There was a round quartz window, showing the
inside of steel-plate windows beyond it. Babs pushed a button marked
"_Shutter_," and the valves of steel drew back.

Cochrane blinked, lifted even out of his irritableness by the sight
before him.

He saw the immensity of the heavens, studded with innumerable stars.