Wherever there is power and mass to manipulate, Man can live.
For almost three days, the Rolling Stone coasted slowly through Rock City. To the naked eye looking out a port or even to a person standing outside on the hull Rock City looked like any other stretch of space — empty, with a backdrop of stars. A sharp-eyed person who knew the constellations well would have noticed far too many planets distorting the classic configurations, planets which did not limit their wanderings to the Zodiac. Still sharper attention would have spotted motion on the part of these ‘planets,’ causing them to open out and draw aft from the direction the Stone was heading.
Just before lunch on the third day Captain Stone slowed his ship still more and corrected her vector by firing a jato unit; City Hall and several other shapes could be seen ahead. Later in the afternoon he fired one more jato unit, leaving the Stone dead in space relative to City Hall and less than an eighth of a mile from it. He turned to the phone and called the Mayor.
‘Rolling Stone, Luna, Captain Stone speaking.’
‘We’ve been watching you come in, Captain,’ came the voice of the Mayor.
‘Good. Mr Fries, I’m going to try to get a line over to you. With luck, I’ll be over to see you in a half-hour or so.’
‘Using a line-throwing gun? I’ll send someone out to pick it up.’
‘No gun, worse luck. With the best of intentions I forgot to stock one.’
Fries hesitated. ‘Uh, Captain, pardon me, but are you in good practice for free-fall suit work?’
‘Truthfully, no.’
‘Then let me send a boy across to put a line on you. No, no! I insist’
Hazel, the Captain, and the twins suited up, went outside, and waited. They could make out a small figure on the ship across from them; the ship itself looked larger now, larger than the Stone. City Hall was an obsolete space-to-space vessel, globular, and perhaps thirty years old. Roger Stone surmised correctly that she had made a one-way freighter trip after she was retired from a regular run.
In close company with City Hall was a stubby cylinder; it was either smaller than the spherical ship or farther away. Near it was an irregular mass impossible to make out; the sunlight on it was bright enough but the unfilled black shadows gave no clear clues. All around them were other ships or shapes close enough to be distinguished from the stars; Pollux estimated that there must be two dozen within as many miles. While he watched a scooter left a ship a mile or more away and headed toward City Hall.
The figure they had seen launched himself across the gap. He seemed to swell; in half a minute he was close by, checking himself by the line he carried. He dropped to an easy landing near the bow of the Stone; they went to meet him.
‘Howdy, Captain. I’m Don Whitsitt, Mr. Fries’ bookkeeper.’
‘Howdy, Don.’ He introduced the others; the twins helped haul in the light messenger line and coil it; it was followed by a steel line which Don Whitsitt shackled to the ship.
‘See you at the store,’ he said. ‘So long.’ He launched himself back the way he came, carrying the coiled messenger line and not bothering with the line he had rigged.
Pollux watched him draw away. ‘I think I could do that’
‘Just keep on thinking it,’ his father said, ‘and loop yourself to that guide line.’
One leap took them easily across the abyss, provided one did not let one’s loop twist around the guide line. Castor’s loop did so; it braked him to a stop. He had to unsnarl it, then gain momentum again by swarming along the line hand over hand
Whitsitt had gone inside but he had recycled the lock and left it open for them. They went on in, to be met there by the Honorable Jonathan Fries, Mayor of Rock City. He was a small, bald, pot-bellied man with a sharp, merry look in his eye and a stylus tucked back of his ear. He shook hands with Roger Stone enthusiastically. ‘Welcome, welcome! We’re honored to have you with us, Mister Mayor. I ought to have a key to the city, or some such, for you. Dancing girls and brass bands.’