opportunity like this for anything.”
“Can’t blame you, sir,” Oestreicher said. “But that body
doesn’t look like it has any solid core. What if you just
sank right through to the center?”
“That’s not likely,” Arpe said. “I’ve got a small increment
of negative mass, and I’ll retain it by picking up the ship’s
field with an antenna. The electron’s light, but what mass it
has is positive; in other words, it will repel me slightly. I
won’t sink far.”
“Well then, who’s to go with you?” Oestreicher said, mask-
ing every word with great care. “One trained observer should
be enough, but you’ll need an anchor man. I’m astonished
that we haven’t heard from Hammersmith alreadyhave you
noticed how tightly he shut down as soon as this subject
came up?”
“So he did,” Arpe said, baffled. “I haven’t heard a peep
out of him for the last hour. Well, that’s his problem; maybe
he had enough after Titan.”
“How about Miss Gospardi?” Stauffer suggested. “It seems
to reassure her to be with you. Captain, and it’ll give her
something new to think about. And it’ll take an incipient
panic center out of the ship long enough to let the other
people calm down.”
“Good enough,” Arpe said. “Mr. Stauffer, order the gig
broken out.”
3
The little world had a solid surface, after all, though it
blended so gradually into the glittering haze of its atmosphere
that it was very hard to see. Arpe and the girl seemed to be
walking waist-deep in some swirling, opalescent substance that
was bearing a colloidal metallic dust, like minute sequins.
The faint repulsions against their space suits could not be felt