He didn't know how to take the comment. He said
to Holden:
"Tomorrow we'll try to figure out some sort of test and try the air.
I'll go out in a space-suit and crack the face-plate! I can close it
again before anything lethal gets in. But there's no use stepping out
into a bed of coals tonight. I'll have to wait till morning."
Holden smiled at him. Babs regarded him with intent, enigmatic eyes.
Neither of them said anything more. Cochrane finished his meal. Then he
found himself without an occupation. Gravity on this planet was very
nearly the same as on Earth. It felt like more, of course, because all
of them had been subject only to moon-gravity for nearly three weeks.
Jones and the pilot had been in one-sixth gravity for a much longer
time. And the absence of gravity had caused their muscles to lose tone
by just about the amount that the same time spent in a hospital bed
would have done. They felt physically worn out.
It was a healthy tiredness, though, and their muscles would come back
to normal as quickly as one recovers strength after illness--rather
faster, in fact. But tonight there would be no night-life on the
space-ship.
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