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The four of them marched down a steel-floored corridor, their magnetic-soled shoes clanking on the plates. Their progress was uncertain and ungainly and altogether undignified. Suddenly the Chief began to bawl a completely irrelevant song to the effect that the inhabitants of the kingdom of Siam were never known to wash their dishes. Haney chimed in, and Mike.
Passengers have the freedom of the platform and will be given every possible privilege." The magnetic-soled slippers did hold one's feet to the spiral ramp, but one had to hold on to a hand-rail to make progress. On the way down to the exit door, Cochrane encountered Babs. She said breathlessly: "I can't believe I'm really here!"
It walks on two legs, as we do ... It has two arms, or something very similar ... The helmet of the suit is very high ... It looks like the armor knights used to fight in ... It's making its way to our air lock ... It does not use magnetic-soled shoes. It's holding onto lines threaded along the other ship's hull ..." The skipper said curtly: "Mr. Baird!
She was on the space platform, which was the second most glamorous spot in the universe. The most glamorous spot, of course, was the moon. Cochrane hobbled ashore into the platform, having no weight whatever. He was able to move only by the curious sticky adhesion of his magnetic-soled slippers to the steel floor-plates beneath him. Or were they beneath?
Joe tried to walk toward it. He discovered his astounding clumsiness. To walk in magnetic-soled shoes in weightlessness requires a knack. When Joe lifted one foot and tried to swing the other forward, his body tried to pivot. When he lifted his right foot, he had to turn his left slightly inward. His arms tried to float absurdly upward.
He stood up with his eyes closed, holding onto a side-rail in the great central room of the platform. "I have to keep my eyes shut," he explained, queasily. "It makes me ill to see people walking on side-walls and across ceilings." A stout tourist was doing exactly that at the moment. If one could walk anywhere at all with magnetic-soled shoes, one could walk everywhere.
His magnetic-soled space boots held him fast and he called Roger over his helmet intercom. "I'm outside, Roger," he reported. "On my way down to the exhaust." "Right," came Roger's voice over the intercom. "Let me know when you're ready." Without replying, Astro made his way slowly and carefully down the length of the rocket scout toward the main drive rocket assembly.
And then there was the gentlest and vaguest of tuggings, and Cochrane could feel the ship being maneuvered. He knew it had made contact with the space platform and was being drawn inside its lock. There was still no weight. The stewardess began to unstrap the passengers one by one, supplying each with magnetic-soled slippers. Cochrane heard her giving instructions in their use.
Somehow, automatically, they fell into single file, and they moved on their magnetic-soled slippers toward a passage tube in one wall. Their slipper soles clanked and clicked in an erratic rhythm. Brent walked with the mincing steps necessary for movement in weightlessness. The others imitated him.
Joe said wrily, "It seems that we ought to weigh something, now we've got here. So we feel queer that we don't. Shoes, Mike?" Mike peeled off the magnetic-soled slippers from their place on the cabin wall. He handed them out and opened the door. A biting chill came in it. Joe slipped on the shoe-soles with their elastic bands to hold them. He stepped out the door. He didn't land.
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