The Space Trilogy by Arthur C. Clarke Page A

supposed to live on the planets of Alpha Centauri. Twenty-First Century were doing the thing in style, and we gathered that they had another unit at work on the Moon.
    The actual shooting was not going to start for another two days, when the actors would be coming up in a third ship. There was much excitement at the news that the star was none other than Linda Lorelli—though we wondered how much of her glamour would be able to get through a space-suit. Playing opposite her in one of his usual tough, he-man roles would be Tex Duncan. This was great news to Norman Powell, who had a vast admiration for Tex and had a photograph of him stuck on his locker.
    All these preparations next door to us were rather distracting, and whenever they were off-duty the Station staff would jump into suits and go across to see how the film technicians were getting on. They had unloaded their cameras, which were fixed to little rocket units so that they could move slowly around. The second spaceship was now being elaborately disguised by the addition of blisters, turrets and fake gun-housings to make it look (so Twenty-First Century hoped) like a battleship from another Solar System. It was really quite impressive.
    We were at one of Commander Doyle's lectures when the stars came aboard. The first we knew of their arrival was when the door opened and a small procession drifted in. The Station Commander came first, then his deputy—and then Linda Lorelli. She was wearing a rather worried smile and it was quite obvious that she found the absence of gravity very confusing. Remembering my own early struggles, I sympathized with her. She was escorted by an elderly woman who seemed to be quite at home under zero 'g' and gave Linda a helpful push when she showed signs of being stuck.
    Tex Duncan followed closely behind: he was trying to manage without an escort, and not succeeding very well. He was a good deal older than I'd guessed from his films—probably at least thirty-five. And you could see through his hair in any direction you cared to look. I glanced at Norman, wondering how he'd reacted to the appearance of his hero. He looked just a shade disappointed.
    It seemed that everyone had heard about Peter and Karl's adventure, for Miss Lorelli was introduced to them and they all shook hands very politely. She asked several quite sensible questions about their work, shuddered at the equations Commander Doyle had written on the blackboard, and invited us all across to the Company's largest ship, the Orson Welles , for tea. I thought she was very nice—much better than Tex, who looked bored stiff with the whole business.
    After this, I'm afraid, the Morning Star was quite deserted—particularly when we found that we could make some money giving a hand on the sets. The fact that we were all used to weightlessness made us very useful, for though most of the film technicians had been into space before they were not very happy under zero 'g' and so moved slowly and cautiously. We could manage things much more efficiently, once we had been told what to do.
    A good deal of the film was being shot on sets inside the Orson Welles , which had been fitted up as a sort of flying studio. All the scenes which were supposed to take place inside a spaceship were being shot here against suitable backgrounds of machinery, control boards, and so on. The really interesting sequences, however, were those which had to be filmed out in space.
    There was one episode, we gathered, in which Tex Duncan would have to save Miss Lorelli from falling helplessly through space into the path of an approaching planet. As it was one of Twenty-First Century's proudest boasts that Tex never used stand-ins but actually carried out even the most dangerous feats himself, we were all looking forward to this. We thought it might be worth seeing, and as it turned out we were quite right…
    I had now been on the Station a fortnight, and considered myself an old hand. It seemed perfectly