"The job's almost over," said Joe.

The ship's own hull, outside the ports, glowed suddenly in a light-beam
from the Platform. The small, brief surges of acceleration which sent
the ship on produced tremendous emotional effects. When the Platform was
only one mile away, Haney switched on the ship's searchlights. They
stabbed through emptiness with absolutely no sign of their existence
until they touched the steel hull of the satellite.

Mike said sharply: "Slow up some more, Joe."

He obeyed again. It would not be a good idea to ram the Platform after
they had come so far to reach it.

They drifted slowly, slowly, slowly toward it. The monstrous Pit of
Darkness which was the night side of Earth seemed almost about to engulf
the Platform. They were a few hundred feet higher than the great metal
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!_