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young man—but the more serious accident was a different story, and had occurred when he was on the first expedition to Mercury. He'd been quite an athlete, it seemed, so the loss of his legs must have been an even bigger blow to him than to most men. It was obvious why he had come to the Station—it was the only place where he wouldn't be a cripple. Indeed, thanks to his powerfully developed arms, he was probably the most agile man in the Station. He had lived here for the last ten years and would never return to Earth, where he would be helpless again. He wouldn't even go over to any of the other space-stations where they had gravity, and no one was ever tactless or foolish enough to suggest such a trip to him.
    There were about a hundred people on board the Inner Station, ten of them apprentices a few years older than myself. At first they were a bit fed up at having me around, but after I'd had my fight with Ronnie Jordan everything was O.K. and they accepted me as one of the family. I'll tell you about that later.
    The senior apprentice was a tall, quiet Canadian named Tim Benton. He never said much, but when he did speak everyone took notice. It was Tim who really taught me my way around the Inner Station, after Commander Doyle had handed me over to him with a few words of explanation.
    'I suppose you know what we do up here?' he said doubtfully when the Commander had left us.
    'You refuel spaceships on their way out from Earth, and carry out repairs and overhauls.'
    'Yes, that's our main job. The other stations—those further out—do a lot else as well, but we needn't bother about that now. There's one important point I'd better make clear right away. This Inner Station of ours is really in two parts, with a couple of miles between them. Come and have a look.'
    He pulled me over to a port and I stared out into space. Hanging there against the stars—so close that it seemed I could reach out and touch it—was what seemed to be a giant flywheel. It was slowly turning on its axis, and as it revolved I could see the glitter of sunlight on its observation ports. I could not help comparing its smooth compactness with the flimsy, open girder work of the station in which I was standing—or, rather, floating. The great wheel had an axle, for jutting from its centre was a long, narrow cylinder which ended in a curious structure I couldn't understand. A spaceship was slowly manoeuvring near it.
    'That's the Residential Station,' said Benton disapprovingly. 'It's nothing but an hotel. You've noticed that it's spinning—because of that, it's got normal Earth gravity at the rim, owing to centrifugal force. We hardly ever go over there: once you've got used to weightlessness, gravity's a nuisance. But all incoming passengers from Mars and the Moon are transhipped there. It wouldn't be safe for them to go straight to Earth after living in a much lower gravity field. In the Residential Station they can get acclimatized, as it were. They go in at the centre, where there's no gravity, and work slowly out to the rim, where it's Earth normal.'
    'How do they get aboard if the thing's spinning?' I asked.
    'See that ship moving into position? If you look carefully, you'll see that the axle of the station isn't spinning—it's being driven by a motor against the station's spin so that it actually stands still in space. The ship can couple up to it and transfer passengers. The coupling's free to rotate, and once the axle revs up to match speed with the station, the passengers can go aboard. Sounds complicated, but it works well. And see if you can think of a better way!'
    'Will I have a chance of going over there?' I asked.
    'I expect it could be arranged—though I don't see much point in it. You might just as well be down on Earth—that's the idea of the place, in fact.'
    I didn't press the point, and it wasn't until the very end of my visit that I was able to get over to the Residential Station, floating there only a couple of miles