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into place, aligned his limbs with the machine's, and felt a series of metal bands snap into place around his arms and legs. He flexed his fingers. The exoskeleton did likewise. From now on it would mimic and amplify every motion effectively quadrupling Lando's strength.
    "It was designed for maintenance work," Cap said by way of explanation, "but it makes a good catcher."
    "Catcher?" Lando asked, moving his right leg experimentally and watching the machine do likewise.
    "Yeah," Sorenson answered. "We'll pitch, and you catch.
    Pitching takes some practice, so I'm giving the easy job to you."
    Lando wanted to ask some more questions but Cap was gone, the jet pak on his back pushing him down through the hatch, with Melissa gamboling along behind.
    Moving with great care Lando took a few tentative steps toward the hatch. Electromagnets kept the exoskeleton's podlike feet securely fastened to the deck. Outside of the slight disorientation that came with Lando's increased size, walking was easy.
    Looking down through the hatch, Lando saw the lights of Utility Platform 63, and two silhouettes as Cap and Melissa touched down. The space station was huge, half a mile in every direction, and outlined with colored lights.
    The platform's function was similar to that of a dirtside warehouse, to store freight prior to shipment, and turn a profit in the process.
    Like most of its kind the platform was actually a cube. Freight could be unloaded on any one of the cube's six sides. This was normally accomplished with automated or remote-controlled mini-tugs. A series of concentric circles decorated each landing surface. Once freight was safely deposited in the middle of a bull's-eye, specially designed robots used the zero-G environment to move it down into the platform's interior, where a computerized sorting system put it away. Later, when it was time to load the freight aboard another ship, the process was reversed.
    The platform could supposedly handle up to six vessels at once, but that increased the chance of a collision, so Lando was glad that this was a slow rotation. One other ship was present with only the strobe of its navigation lights to separate it from the blackness of space.
    "All set?" Cy asked cheerfully, his spherelike body dropping in from Lando's right side. "They oughtta start tossing stuff our way any minute now."
    "Here comes!" Cap said, his voice artificially loud over Lando's suit radio. "Time to earn your pay."
    Looking down Lando saw a tiny square of reflected light separate itself from the surface of the platform and grow suddenly larger. He watched it like a spectator at first, interested, but outside the action.
    "You'd better get ready," Cy cautioned, "it looks like the captain put some zip on that one."
    "Some zip?" Lando asked stupidly, and realized the square had grown suddenly larger and was entering the hatch. Now he understood. Using the surface of the platform as an anchor, and zero gravity as a medium, Cap was pitching cargo modules into Junk 'shold. Lando's job was to catch them. If he failed they'd ricochet around the inside of the launching bay until they ran out of kinetic energy. That could cause some damage, and, even more important, take his head clean off.
    Lando stepped up to the very edge of the hatch and opened his arms.
    The cargo module hit the bottom of his right arm, bounced off, and spun to the left. Shuffling in that direction the smuggler made a grabbing motion, managed to capture the plastic case between massive arms, and stood there unsure of what to do next. It was strange to hold a cargo module in his arms. After all, it was six feet long, four feet wide, and four feet deep, and, without the help of the exoskeleton, much too heavy for Lando to lift.
    "Heads up!" Cy advised. "Here comes another module. Shove that baby toward me and I'll stow it."
    Glancing to his right, Lando saw that Cy had positioned himself in front of the aft section of the bay. Behind him there was an open area.