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away…
    It must have been quite a bother showing me round the Station, because I had to be pushed or pulled most of the way until I'd found my Space-legs'. Once or twice Tim only just managed to rescue me in time when I'd launched myself too vigorously and was about to plunge headlong into an obstacle. But he was very patient, and finally I got the knack of things and was able to move around fairly confidently.
    It was several days before I really knew my way around the great maze of interconnecting corridors and pressure chambers that was the Inner Station. In that first trip I merely had a quick survey of its workshops, radio equipment, power plant, air-conditioning gear, dormitories, storage tanks and observatory. Sometimes it was hard to believe that all this had been carried up into space and assembled here five hundred miles above the Earth. I didn't know, until Tim mentioned it casually, that most of the material in the Station had actually come from the Moon. The Moon's low gravity made it much more economical to ship equipment from there instead of from the Earth—despite the fact that Earth was so much closer.
    My first tour of inspection ended inside one of the airlocks. We stood in front of the great circular door, resting snugly on its rubber gaskets, that led into the outer emptiness. Clamped to the walls around us were the space-suits, and I looked at them longingly. It had always been one of my ambitions to wear one and to become a tiny, serf-contained world of my own.
    'Do you think I'll have a chance of trying one on while I'm here?' I asked.
    Tim looked thoughtful: then he glanced at his watch.
    'I'm not on duty for half an hour, and I want to collect something I've left out at the rim. We'll go outside.'
    'But…' I gulped, my enthusiasm suddenly waning. 'Will it be safe? Doesn't it take a lot of training to use one of these?'
    He looked at me calmly.
    'Not frightened, are you?'
    'Of course not.'
    'Well, let's get started.'
    Tim answered my question while he was showing me how to get into the suit.
    'It's quite true that it takes a lot of training before you can operate one of these. I'm not going to let you try—you sit tight inside and tag along with me. You'll be as safe there as you are now, as long as you don't meddle with the controls. Just to make sure of that, I'll lock them first.'
    I rather resented this, but didn't say anything. After all, he was the boss.
    To most people, the word 'space-suit' conjures up a picture of something like a diving dress, in which a man can walk and use his arms. Such suits are, of course, used on places like the Moon. But on a space-station, where there's no gravity, your legs aren't much use anyway—outside, you have to blow yourself round with tiny rocket units.
    For this reason, the lower part of the suit was simply a rigid cylinder. When I climbed inside it, I found that I could only use my feet to work some control pedals, which I was careful not to touch. There was a little seat, and a transparent dome covering the top of the cylinder gave me good visibility. I could use my hands and arms. Just below my chin there was a neat little control panel with a tiny keyboard and a few meters. If I wanted to handle anything outside, there were flexible sleeves inside which I could push my arms. They ended in gloves which, although they seemed clumsy, enabled one to carry out quite delicate operations.
    Tim threw some of the switches on my suit and clamped the transparent dome over my head. I felt rather like being inside a coffin with a view. Then he chose a suit for himself and attached it to mine by a thin nylon cord.
    The inner door of the air-lock thudded shut behind us and I could hear the vibration of the pumps as the air was sucked back into the station. The sleeves of my suit began to stiffen slightly. Tim called across at me, his voice distorted after passing through our helmets.
    'I won't switch on the radio yet. You should still be able to hear me. Listen