Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 78: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“You prove nothing,” Owens said calmly. “You cannot answer my arguments with your fists.” Collins moved in close again and there was death in his eyes. “It’s up to you to get us through,” he told the man, beginning to feel the doubt slink back into the chamber and take its ugly hold on the people. “If you do not, we'll tear you apart—inch by inch.” Owens hesitated, cold sweat standing out on his forehead. “There is a way,” he said finally. “There is one way —” Collins gripped his arm, digging his nails into the man’s flesh. “If you cannot go through,” Owens pointed out, “you have to go around.” Collins felt his body go dead within him. Around? That meant— “There’s only one way,” Owens said. “We'll have to go... Outside.” Stars. It was one thing to view them from the shelter of the control room but a different proposition entirely when seen from Outside. Cold they were, and close—it seemed to Collins that he had only to reach out a spacesuited hand to pluck an ice-diamond from its field of velvet black. If he Should lose his footing, float off into nothingness, forever alone-He tried not to think about it. If the dark and brooding Viking had seemed quiet in her strange Odyssey through the star-seas, how much more was he conscious of the silence now. It was not merely silence, but an absence of all sound, utter and complete. The old radios of the suits no longer functioned; the air supply was uncertain. Collins almost fancied that his breathing was already flat and stale. Inch by tnch, foot by slow agonizing foot, the men pulled themselves like ants along the silent side of the Viking. Collins could see the monstrous, incredible figure of Owens ahead of him, like a robot-suit without a human being in it. Behind him he sensed his people: Webb, Echols, Renaldo, their equipment strapped to their backs, feeling CORniclooo SS CO