Loring started to fire, but Tom saw him in
time and shot away from the wall toward the hatch. He twisted his body
completely around, and with his shoulder hunched over, fired at Loring
with his ray gun. The charge hit the target and Loring became rigid, his
body slowly floating above the deck. His back to the wall, braced for
the recoil, Tom brought his arm around slowly and aimed at Mason. He
fired, and the spaceman stiffened.
Tom smiled. Neither of the spacemen would give him any more trouble now.
He pushed slightly to the left and shot over to the valve that Mason had
unwittingly turned off. Tom turned it on and clung to an overhead pipe
until he felt the reassuring grip of the synthetic gravity pull him to
the deck. Loring and Mason, in the same positions they had been in when
Tom fired, settled slowly to the deck. Tom walked over and looked at
both of them. He knew they could hear him.
"For smart spacemen like you two," said Tom, "you sure forgot your basic
physics. Newton's laws of motion, remember? Everything in motion tends
to keep going at the same speed, unless influenced by an outside force.
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