was worse than what he already had.

McCray was beginning to feel more confident. It was astonishing how a little light made an impossible situation bearable, how quickly his courage flowed back when he could see again.

He stood still, thinking. Item, a short time ago—subjectively it seemed to be minutes—he had been aboard the Jodrell Bank with nothing more on his mind than completing his check-sighting and meeting one of the female passengers for coffee. Item, apart from being shaken up and—he admitted it—scared damn near witless, he did not seem to be hurt. Item, wherever he was now, it became, not so much what had happened to him, but what had happened to the ship?

He allowed that thought to seep into his mind. Suppose there had been an accident to the Jodrell Bank.

He could, of course, be dead. All this could be the fantasies of a cooling brain.

McCray grinned into the pink-lit darkness. The thought had somehow refreshed him, like icewater between rounds, and with a clearing head he remembered what a spacesuit was good for.

It held a radio.

He pressed the unsealing tabs, slipped his hand into the vacant chest of the suit and pulled out the hand mike. "This is Herrell McCray," he said, "calling the Jodrell Bank."

No response. He frowned. "This is Herrell McCray, calling Jodrell Bank.

"Herrell McCray, calling anybody, come in, please."

But there was no answer.

Thoughtfully he replaced the microphone. This was ultrawave radio, something more than a million times faster than light, with a range measured, at least, in hundreds of light-years. If there was no answer, he was a good long way from anywhere.

Of course, the thing might not be operating.

He reached for the microphone again—

He cried aloud.

The pinkish lights went out. He was in the dark again, worse dark than before.

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