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remember?"
    "Not exactly. It’s as if I’m remembering a nightmare. Bud, did I—fall?"
    Bud nodded.
    "And you pulled me in. Chow was there…"
    "You were trying to free up the launcher mechanism, and—"
    "Yes," said Tom. "The bruise on my shoulder. The whole thing doesn’t seem real anymore, as if it never really happened."
    Bud scratched his head. "I’m not a…I mean, I don’t know about this stuff, but maybe you’re sort of blanking it all out because—"
    "Because it was so terrifying," concluded Tom. "Falling and falling all alone. I was looking mortality right in the face and— I blinked. I couldn’t take it. And now I’m afraid to look out at an empty sky, or to go up in a plane. I can’t touch the throttle. Crazy things run through my mind, just like the space symbols on the oscillograph screen."
    Bud lay a reassuring hand on Tom’s forearm. "You know I’m here for you, pal. We all are."
    "If I can’t fight this off, you know what it means." Tom looked away in anguish. "I won’t be able to participate in the space station project. I’ll be grounded completely, useless."
    "Don’t talk that way!" demanded Bud.
    "Maybe you’d better taxi the Special back into the hangar," Tom said. "I—don’t think I can do it."
    As they left the airfield minutes later, Bud asked Tom’s permission to discuss Tom’s problem with Mr. Swift. "Please don’t," responded Tom. "Give me a chance to fight this off without worrying anyone—anyone but you, chum. If I fail, do what you need to do."
    Some hours later, after a silent, listless supper in his laboratory, Tom went home. He attempted to work, but found himself nodding off to sleep as if he had been drugged. Finally, he gave up and crawled into bed.
    It wasn’t even nine o’clock.
    The next morning Tom felt somewhat invigorated. Tom’s whole family accompanied him to the plant to witness his first test of a new invention he had developed in connection with the space outpost project, which Bud was to test and demonstrate.
    The little group included Bashalli Prandit. "Tom, what is this ‘zero-G chamber’ of yours, anyway?" she asked in the car, running her fingers through her long, raven-dark hair. "Do I understand it is for losing weight?"
    "I guess you might say that, Bash," laughed Tom. "It has to do with helping our worker-astronauts become accustomed to low-gravity conditions without ever leaving the earth."
    "I would think not having gravity to fight would make life easier," she remarked.
    "Some experts believe human beings couldn’t survive prolonged exposure to weightlessness," noted Tom’s father. "Astronauts who have been in orbit for weeks or months not only become physically weaker, but seem to suffer a general deterioration in their nervous system and basic reflexes."
    "That could be a very serious problem when it comes to doing construction work in space," added Mrs. Swift. "Small errors could be fatal."
    "But won’t the space outpost be rotating like a wheel?" inquired Sandy. "I thought the idea was to cause a feeling of weight."
    "Yes…but…" Tom seemed to drift away in mid-sentence, and the car, his father’s, swerved slightly.
    "Dear, you’d better pay attention to the road," Tom’s mother warned.
    "Sorry. I’m all right." Tom cleared his throat. "Sandy, the wheel will rotate, but not until all construction work is finished. During the construction phase is when we’ll face the greatest danger of errors or accidents."
    "Indeed," said Bashalli breezily. "One wouldn’t wish to fall off. So, Thomas, your chamber creates these conditions here on the ground?"
    The young inventor gave a slight nod. "Yes. Of course, it won’t really reduce the actual pull of gravity—no more than floating in a swimming pool is gravity-free. I use a pulsating electromagnet to create a counterforce." Tom explained that the pulsating aspect allowed for more efficient use of energy. "But the principle is very simple. It’s like using a little horseshoe magnet