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“All right, Mr. Danley; let’s begin again. Climb along the surface. Use toeholds, handholds, and fingerholds. Feel your way along. Find those little crevices that will give you a grip. It doesn’t take much. You’re a lot better off than a mountain climber on Earth because you don’t have to fight your weight. You have only your mass to worry about. That’s it. Fine. Very good, Mr. Danley.”

* * * * *

And, later:

“Now, Mr. Danley,” said Captain Brand, “you are at the end of your tether, so to speak.”

The three men were in a space boat, several hundred miles from Pallas. Or, rather, two of them were in the boat, standing at the open door. Peter Danley was far out from it, at the end of his safety line.

“How far are you from us, Mr. Danley?” Brand asked.

“Three hundred meters, Captain Brand,” Danley said promptly.

“Very good. How do you know?”

“I am at the end of my safety line, which is three hundred meters long when fully extended.”

“Your memory is excellent, Mr. Danley. Now, how will you get back to the boat?”

“Pull myself hand over hand along the line.”

“Think, Mr. Danley! Think!”

“Uh. Oh. Well, I wouldn’t keep pulling. I’d just give myself a tug and then coast in, taking up the line slowly as I went.”

“Excellent! What would happen if you, as you put it, pulled yourself in hand over hand, as if you were climbing a rope on Earth?”

“I would accelerate too much,” Danley said. “I’d gain too much momentum and probably bash my brains out against the boat. And I’d have no way to stop myself.”

“Bully for you, Mr. Danley! Now see if you can put into action that which you have so succinctly put into words. Come back to the boat. Gently the first time. We’ll have plenty of practice, so that you can get the feel of the muscle pull that will give you a maximum of velocity with a minimum of impact at this end. Gently, now.”

* * * * *

Still later:

“Judgment, Mr. Danley!” St. Simon cautioned. “You have to use judgment! A space boat is not an automobile. There is no friction out here to slow it to a stop. Your accelerator is just exactly that–an accelerator. Taking your foot off it won’t slow you down a bit; you’ve got to use your reverse.”

Peter Danley was at the controls of the boat. There were tiny beads of perspiration on his forehead. Over a kilometer away was a good-sized hunk of rock; his instructors wouldn’t let him get any closer. They wanted to be sure that they could take over before the boat struck the rock, just in case Danley should freeze to the accelerator a little too long.

He wasn’t used to this sort of thing. He was used to a taped acceleration-deceleration program which lifted a big ship, aimed it, and went through the trip all automatically. All he had ever had to do was drop it the last few hundred feet to a landing field.

“Keep your eyes moving,” St. Simon said. “Your radar can give you data that you need, just remember that it can’t think for you.”

Your right foot controls your forward acceleration.

Your left foot controls your reverse acceleration.

They can’t be pushed down together; when one goes down, the other goes up. Balance one against the other.

Turning your wheel controls the roll of the boat.

Pulling your wheel toward you, or pushing it away, controls the pitch.

Shifting the wheel left, or right, controls the yaw.

The instructions had been pounded into his head until each one seemed to ring like a separate little bell. The problem was coordinating his body to act on those instructions.