So did I. I peeled the other slipper off with my toes. Over our heads the jointed arm of the Grabber began to swing…and I suddenly realized what they were talking about.

Now there was little to see beyond the dome. The swinging Grabber, and the light of Hobo Kelly’s drive, and the two tumbling wrecks, all against a background of fixed stars. Suddenly one of the tugs winked blue-white and was gone. Not even a dust cloud was left behind.

Ausfaller must have seen it. He was turning, fleeing. Then it was as if an invisible hand had picked up Hobo Kelly and thrown her away. The fusion light streaked off to one side and set beyond the dome’s edge.

With two tugs destroyed and the third fleeing, the black hole was falling free, aimed straight down our throats.

Now there was nothing to see but the delicate motions of the Grabber. Angel stood behind Forward’s chair, his knuckles white with his grip on the chair’s back.

My few pounds of weight went away and left me in free-fall. Tides again. The invisible thing was more massive than this asteroid beneath me. The Grabber swung a meter more to one side…and something struck it a mighty blow.

The floor surged away from beneath me, left me head down above the Grabber. The huge soft-iron puppy dish came at me; the jointed metal arm collapsed like a spring. It slowed, stopped.

“You got it!” Angel crowed like a rooster, and slapped at the back of the chair, holding himself down with his other hand. He turned a gloating look on us, turned back just as suddenly. “The ship! It’s getting away!”

“No.” Forward was bent over the console. “I see him. Good, he is coming back, straight toward us. This time there will be no tugs to warn the pilot.”

The Grabber swung ponderously toward the point where I’d seen Hobo Kelly disappear. It moved centimeters at a time, pulling a massive invisible weight.

And Ausfaller was coming back to rescue us. He’d be a sitting duck unless—

I reached up with my toes, groping for the first and fourth buttons on my falling jumper.

The weaponry in my wonderful suit hadn’t helped me against Jinxian strength and speed. But flatlanders are less than limber, and so are Jinxians. Forward had tied my hands and left it at that.

I wrapped two sets of toes around the buttons and tugged.

My legs were bent pretzel-fashion. I had no leverage. But the first button tore loose, and then the thread. Another invisible weapon to battle Forward’s portable bottomless hole.

The thread pulled the fourth button loose. I brought my feet down to where they belonged, keeping the thread taut, and pushed backward. I felt the Sinclair molecule chain sinking into the pillar.

The Grabber was still swinging.