...Gillbret had shouted in delight, "That's the Autarch's yacht," and his face wrinkled into a grin. "It's his private yacht.

There was the period of deceleration and adjustment of velocity on the part of the Linganian ship, until it hung motionless in the 'plate.

A thin voice came from the receiver: "Ready for boarding?"

"Ready!" said Biron. "One person only."

"One person," came the response.

It was like a snake uncoiling, the metal-mesh rope looping outward from the Linganian ship, shooting at them harpoon-fashion. Its thickness expanded in the visiplate and the magnetized cylinder that ended it approached and grew in size. As it grew closer, it edged toward rim of the cone of vision, then veered off completely.

...The sound of its contact was hollow and reverberant. The magnetized weight was anchored, and the line was a spider-thread that did not sag in a normal weighted curve but retained whatever kinks and loops it had possessed at the moment of contact. These moved slowly forward as units under the influence of inertia.

(Boarding Space-Line from 'Tyrann' by Isaac Asimov)

Easily and carefully, the Linganian ship edged away and the line straightened. It hung there then, taut and fine, thinning into space until it was an almost invisible thing, glittering with incredible daintiness in the light of Lingane's sun.

Biron threw in the telescopic attachment, which bloated the ship monstrously in the field of vision, so that one could see the origin of the half-mile length of connecting line, and the little figure that was beginning to swing hand over hand along it.

It was not the usual form of boarding. Ordinarily, two ships would maneuver to near-contact, so that extensible airlocks could meet and merge under intense magnetic fields. A tunnel through space would thus connect the ships and a man could travel from one to the other with no further protection than he needed to wear aboard ship. Naturally, this form of boarding required mutual trust.

By space-line, one was dependent upon his spacesuit. The approaching Linganian was bloated in his; a fat thing of air-extended metal mesh, the joints of which required no . small muscular effort to work. Even at the distance at which he was, Biron could see his arms flex with a snap as the joint gave and came to rest in a new groove.

And the mutual velocities of the two ships had to be carefully adjusted. An inadvertent acceleration on the part of either would tear the line loose and send the traveler tumbling through space under the easy grip of the faraway sun and of the initial impulse of the snapping line — with nothing, neither friction nor obstruction, to stop him this side of eternity.

The approaching Linganian moved on confidently and quickly. When he came closer it was easy to see that it was not a simple hand over hand procedure. Each time the forward hand flexed, pulling him on, he would let go and float onward some dozen feet before his other hand reached forward for a new hold.