_"Far" is strictly a relative term. Half a world away from home is,
sometimes, no distance at all!_
Someone must have talked over the fence because the newshounds were
clamoring on the trail within an hour after it happened.
The harassed Controller had lived in an aura of "Restricteds,"
"Classifieds" and "Top Secrets" for so long it had become a mental
conditioning and automatically hedged over information that had been
public property for years via the popular technical mags; but in time
they pried from him an admittance that the Station Service Lift rocket
A. J. "Able Jake" Four had indeed failed to rendezvous with Space
Station One, due at 9:16 Greenwich that morning.
The initial take-off and ascent had gone to flight plan and the pilot,
in the routine check-back after entering free flight had reported no
motor or control faults. At this point, unfortunately, a fault in the
tracking radar transmitter had resulted in it losing contact with the
target. The Controller did not, however, mention the defection of the
hungover operator in fouling up the signal to the standby unit, or the
consequent general confusion in the tracking network with no contact at
all thereafter, and fervently hoped that gentlemen of the press were not
too familiar with the organization of the tracking system.
At least one of the more shrewd looking reporters appeared as though he
were mentally baiting a large trap so the Controller, throwing caution
to the winds, plunged headlong into a violent refutal of various
erroneous reports already common in the streets.
Able Jake did not carry explosives or highly corrosive chemicals, only
some Waste Disposal cylinders, dry foodstuffs and sundry Station
Household supplies.
Furthermore there was no truth in the oft-revived rumors of weaknesses
in the so-called "spine-and-rib" construction of the Baur and Hammond
Type Three vessel under acceleration strain. The type had been
discontinued solely because the rather complicated structure raised
certain stowage difficulties in service with overlong turnabout times
resulting.
There may have been a collision with a meteor he conceded, but, it was
thought, highly unlikely. And now, the urgent business of the search
called, the Controller escaped, perspiring gently.
Able Jake was sighted a few minutes later but it was another three hours
before a service ship could be readied and got away without load to
allow it as much operating margin as possible. Getting a man aboard was
yet another matter. At this stage of space travel no maneuver of this
nature had ever been accomplished outside of theory. Fuel-thrust-mass
ratios were still a thing of pretty close reckoning, and the service
lift ships were simply not built for it.
The ship was in an elliptical orbit and a full degree off its normal
course. A large part of the control room was demolished and there was a
lengthy split in the hull. There was no sign of the pilot and some of
the cargo was missing also. The investigating crew assumed the obvious
and gave it as their opinion that the pilot had been literally
disintegrated by the intense heat of the collision.
The larger part of the world's population made it a point to listen in
on the first space burial service in history over the absent remains of
Johnny Melland.
* * * * *
Such a small thing to cause such a fury. A mere twenty Earth pounds of
an indifferent grade of rock and a little iron, an irregular, ungraceful
lump, spawned somewhere a billion years before as a star died. But it
still had most of the awesome velocity and inertia of its birth.
Able Jake, with the controlling influence of the jets cut, had yawed
slightly and was now traveling crabwise. The meteor on its own course, a
trifle oblique to that of the ship, struck almost directly the slender
spring steel spine, the frightful energy of the impact transmuted on the
instant into a heat that vaporized several feet of the nose and spine
before the dying shock caused an anguished flexing of the ship's
backbone; thrust violently outward along the radial members and so
against the ribs and hull sheathing on that side. Able Jake's hull split
open like a pea pod for fully half its length and several items of its
cargo burst from their lashings, erupted from the wound.
Johnny was not inboard at the time, but floating, spacesuited alongside,
freeing a fouled lead to the radar bowl, swearing occasionally but
without any real passion at the stupidity of the unknown maintenance man
who failed to secure it properly. For some odd reason he had never quite
lost the thrill of his first trip "outside," and, donning pressure suit
with the speed of long practice, sneaked as many "inspections" as
possible, with or without due cause.
The second's fury that reduced the third stage of a $5,000,000 rocket to
junk was evident to him only as a brilliant blue-white flash, a
hammer-like shock through the antennae support that left his wrist and
forearm numb. Then a violent wrench as a long cylinder, expelled from
the split hull, caught the loop of his life line and dragged him in till
he clashed hard against it, the suddenly increased tension or a sharp
edge parting the line close to the anchored end. He clawed blindly for a
hold, found something he could not at that moment identify and hung on.
For a short time his vision seemed dulled and that part of his mind,
trained to the quick analysis of sudden situations groped but feebly
through a haze of shock to understand what had happened. Orienting
himself he found he was gripping a brace of the open-mounted motor on
one of the Waste Disposal Cylinders. About him he could see other odd
items of the cargo, some clustering fairly closely, others just
perceptibly drifting farther away. To one side, or "downwards" the Earth
rolling vastly, pole over pole, and with her own natural rotation
giving an odd illusion of slipping sideways from under him.
Only a sudden sun glint on the stubby swept-back wings showed him where
Able Jake was. Far away--too far, spinning slowly end over end. His
sideways expulsion from the ship then had been enough to give him and
his companion debris a divergent course.
Spacemen accept without question the fact of a ship or a station always
at hand with a safety man on watch at all times over those outside and a
"bug" within signaling distance constantly. They do not conceive of any
other state of affairs.
Now Johnny had to face the fact that he was in such a position--entirely
and utterly alone, except for the useless flotsam that came with him. He
might have flung himself into a mad chase after the ship on his suit
jets except that the thought of leaving his little island, cold comfort
though it was, to plunge into those totally empty depths was suddenly
horrible.
The tide of panic rose within him. He knew the sickening bodily revolt
of blind unreasoning terror--the terror of the lost, the terror of
certain untimely death, but mostly of death so dreadfully alone.
He might have gone insane. In the face of the insoluble problem his mind
might have retreated into a shadow world of its own, perhaps to prattle
happily the last few hours away. But there was something else there. The
pre-flight school psychiatrist had recognized it, Johnny himself
probably wouldn't have and it wasn't their policy to tell him. It saved
him. The labored heart pounding and the long shuddering gasps slowed in
time and with the easing of his physical distress he found enough heart
to muster a wry little smile at the thought that of the castaways of
history he at least stood fair to be named the most unique.
* * * * *
And after a while, shaking himself mentally, a little ashamed of his
temporary fall from grace, he followed the example of the more
intelligent of his predecessors and settled down to itemize his assets,
analyze his position and conjecture the chances of survival.
Item: He was encased in a Denby Bros. spacesuit, Mark III, open space
usage, meant for no gravity use. Therefore it had no legs as such, the
lower half being a rigid cylinder allowing considerable movement within
and having a swivel mounted rocket motor at its base controlled by toe
pedals inside.
The upper half, semiflexible with jointed arms ending in gloves from
which by contorting the shoulders the hands could be withdrawn into the
sleeves when not in use.
A metal and tinted plastic helmet with earphones, mike and chin switch.
An oxy air-conditioning and reprocessing unit with its spare pure oxygen
tank; on this he could possibly depend for twelve hours given no undue
exertion and with the most rigid economy all the time.
The power pack for suit operation and radio had a safety margin of one
hour over the maximum air supply, if the radio wasn't used. At this time
Johnny couldn't see much use for it.
Item: One Waste Disposal Cylinder, expendable, complete with motor and
full fuel tanks, packed, according to his loading manifest with sundry
supplies to avoid dead stowage space. Seldom used, since most station
waste was ferried down in the otherwise empty service ships, they
occasionally handled certain laboratory refuse it was considered best to
destroy in space. The cylinders were decelerated and allowed to fall
into atmosphere where the friction of the unchecked plunge burned up
what the magnesium charge inside had not already. The rest of the
shipwrecked material had by now drifted beyond easy reach and Johnny did
not feel like wasting fuel rounding it up.
Position? A matter of memory and some guesswork by now. Some ten minutes
out of powered flight at the time of collision, coasting up to station
orbit where a quick boost from the jets would have made up his lost
velocity to orbit standard. But there would be no boost now. So he'd
just fall off around the other side, falling around and into Mother
Earth, to skim atmosphere and climb on past and up to touch orbit
altitude--and down again. A nice elliptical orbit, apogee a thousand odd
miles, perigee, sixty-seventy--perhaps. How much speed had he left? How
long would it be before he brushed the fringe of atmosphere once too
often and too deep? Just another meteor.
And survival. A comparatively simple problem since the mechanics of it
were restricted by a simple formula in which his role would seem to be a
passive one. To survive he must be rescued by his own kind in twelve
hours or less. To be rescued he must be seen or heard. Since his radio
was a simple short-range intercom it followed that he must be seen first
and heard later. Being seen meant making a sufficiently distinguishable
_blip_ on somebody's radar screen to arouse comment over a _blip_ where,
according to schedule no orbiting _blip_ should be.
* * * * *
Johnny was painfully aware that the human body is very small in space.
The cylinder would be a help but he doubted it would be enough. Then he
thought of the material inside the cylinder. He pried back the lugs
holding the cover in place with the screwdriver from his belt kit. He
started pulling out packages, bags, boxes, thrusting them behind him,
above him, downwards; cereals, ready mixed pastries, bundles of
disposable paper overalls--toilet paper! He worked furiously, now stuck
halfway down the cylinder, kicking the bundles behind him. He emerged
finally in a flurry of articles clutching a large plastic bag that had
filled the entire lower end of the tank.
About him drifted a sizable cloud of station supplies, stirring
sluggishly after his emergence. He pushed them a bit more, distributing
them as much as possible without losing them altogether.
Johnny tore open the big bag and was instantly enveloped in clinging
folds of ribbon released from the pressure of its packing. He knew what
it was now, the big string of ribbon chutes for the Venus Expedition,
intended for dropping a remote controlled mobile observer to the as yet
unseen and unknown surface. Johnny had ferried parts of the crab-like
mechanical monster on the last run, and illogically found himself
worrying momentarily over the set-back to the Probe his mischance would
cause.
But in the next minute he was making fast the lower end of the string to
the WD cylinder, then, finding the top chute he toed his pedals and
jetted himself out, trailing the string out to its full extent.
Now the period of action was over and he had done all he could, Johnny
found himself dreading the time of waiting to follow. He would have time
for thinking, and thinking wasn't profitable under the circumstances
unless it were something definitely constructive and applicable to his
present and future well-being. Waiting was always bad.
Surely they would find him soon. Surely they would press the search
farther even when they found Able Jake as they couldn't fail to in time.
A tightness started in his throat. Johnny quickly drowned the thought in
a flood of inconsequential nonsense, a trick he had learned as a green
pilot. He might sleep though, if sleep were a possible thing in this
cold emptiness. No one, to his recollection, had ever done so outside a
ship or station--the space psychology types would be interested
doubtless.
* * * * *
Johnny tied his life line to the WD cylinder and then jetted clear of
his artificial cloud, positioning himself so that it formed a partial
screen between himself and the sun. He turned his oxygen down to the
bare minimum and the thermostat as low as he dared. He commenced a
relaxation exercise and was pleased when it worked after a fashion--a
mental note for Beaufort at the station. A drowsiness crept over him,
dulling a little the thin edge of fear that probed his consciousness.
Face down towards the earth he hung. The slow noise of his breathing
only intensified the complete silence outside. The well padded suit
encompassed him so gently there was no sense of pressure on his body to
make up for the weightlessness. Johnny felt as though he were bodiless,
a naked brain with eyes only hanging in nothingness.
Beneath, Earth rolled over with slow majesty, once every two hours. His
altered course was evident now, passing almost directly over the
geographic poles proper instead of paralleling the twilight zone where
night and day met. Sometimes he caught the faint glow of a big city on
the night side but the sight only stirred the worm of anxiety and he
closed his eyes.
Johnny was beginning to feel very comfortable. He supposed sleepily
that this was the way you were assumed to feel while freezing to death
in a snowbank, or so he'd heard. Air and heat too low perhaps. He should
really turn it up a notch.
On the other hand it was perhaps a solution to the problem of dying--a
gentle sleep while the stomach was still full enough from the last meal
to be reasonably comfortable and the throat yet unparched. Would it be
the act of an unbalanced mind or one of the most supreme sanity?
He dozed and dreamed a bit in fragments and snatches but it was not a
good sleep--there was no peace in it. At one time he seemed to be
standing outside the old fretworked boarding house he lived in--looking
in at the window of the "sitting room" where the ancient, wispy landlady
sat among her antimacassared chairs and the ridiculous tiny seashell
ashtrays that overflowed after two butts. He wanted desperately to get
in and sprawl in the huge bat-winged chair by the fire and stroke the
enormous old gray cat that would leap up and trample and paw his stomach
before settling down to grumble to itself asthmatically for hours.
It was cold and dark out here and he wanted to get in to the
friendliness and the warmth and the peaceful, familiar security, but he
didn't dare go around to the door because he knew if he did the vision
would vanish and he'd never find it again.
He scratched and beat at the window but his fingers made no sound, he
tried to shout but his cries were only strangled whispers and the old
lady sat and rocked and talked to the big gray cat and never turned her
head.
The fire seemed to be flaring up suddenly, it was filling the whole
room--a monstrous furnace; it shouldn't do that he knew, but the old
lady didn't seem to mind sitting there rocking amid the flames--and it
was so nice and warm. The fire kept growing and swelling though--soon it
burst through the window and engulfed him. Too hot. Too hot.
* * * * *
Johnny swam hazily back to consciousness with an aching head and thick
mouth. He saw that he had drifted clear of his protective screen somehow
and the sun beat full on him. With clumsy, fumbling hands that seemed to
belong to somebody else he managed the air valve; the increased oxygen
reviving him enough to find the pedals and jet erratically about till he
gained the shadow once more.
Now he was entering upon the worst phase of the living nightmare. Awake,
the doubts and fears of his position tormented him; wearied, he feared
to sleep, yet continually he found himself nodding only to jerk awake
with that suddenness that is like a physical blow. Each one of these
awakenings took away a little more of his self-control till he was
reduced to near hysteria, muttering abstractly, sometimes whimpering
like a lost child; now seized with a feverish concern for his air
supply. He would at one instant cut it down to a dangerous minimum,
then, remembering the near disaster of his first attempt at economy,
frantically turn it up till he was in danger of an oxygen jag. In a
moment he would forget and start all over again.
In addition, he was now realizing bitterly what he had subconsciously
denied to himself for so long, that they had found Able Jake and drawn
the obvious conclusion. That he had been obliterated or blown out
through the hull by the collision without warning or preparation. That
he was undoubtedly dead if not vaporized altogether and, as they must,
considering the expense of a probably fruitless search, abandon him.
There came the moment when Johnny accepted this in full. This was
directly after the time when, sliding down the long hill to the perigee
of his orbit, he turned on his radio and cried for help. It was a bare
hundred miles or less to that wonderful world below, but there was the
Heaviside layer, and the weak signals beat but feebly against it. All
that seeped through by some instant's freak of transmission was a
fragment of incoherent babble to reach the uncomprehending ear of an
Arkansas ham and give that gentleman uneasy sleep for some time to come.
He kept calling mechanically even after perigee was long past, praying
for an answer from the powerful transmitters below or from a searching
ship. But when there was no slightest whisper in his phones or answering
flare among the stars, Johnny came to the end of faith. Even of
awareness, for his own ears did not register the transition of his calls
to an insane howling of intermixed pleas, threats, condemnation--a sewer
flood of foul vilification against those who had betrayed him.
Bright and beautiful, Earth rolled blandly beneath him, the sun was a
remote impersonal thing and the stars mocked silently. After a while the
radio carried only the agonized sounds of a man who had forgotten how to
cry and must learn again. There were times after this when he observed
incuriously a parade of mind pictures, part memory, part pure
hallucination and containing nothing of reason; other times when he
thought not at all. The sun appeared to dwindle, retreating and fading
far away into a remote place where there were no stars at all. It became
a feeble candle, guttered unsteadily a moment and suddenly winked out.
Abruptly Johnny was asleep.
* * * * *
He opened his eyes and surveyed the scene with an oddly calm and
dispassionate curiosity, not that he expected to find his status changed
in any way but because he had awakened with a queer sense of unreality
about the whole business. He knew vaguely that he'd had a bad time in
the last few hours but could remember little of the details save that it
was like one of those fragmentary nightmares in the instant between
sleeping and waking when it is difficult to divide the fact from the
dream. Now he must reassure himself that this facet of it was real and
when he had done so, realized with a faint shock that he was no longer
afraid.
Fear, it seemed, had by its incessant pressure dulled its own edge. The
acceptance of inevitable death was still there, but now it seemed to
have little more significance than the closing of a book at the last
page.
It is possible that Johnny was not wholly sane at this point, but there
is no one to witness this and Johnny, not given to introspection at any
time, felt no spur to self-analysis, beyond a brief mental registration
of the fact.
So he made his visual survey, saw that it was real, nothing had changed;
noted with mild surprise that he'd somehow remained in the shadow of his
screen this time. He had lost track of time entirely but the suit's air
supply telltale was in the yellow indicating about two hours more or
less to go on breathing. In quick succession he reviewed the events,
accepted the probability of the abandoned search without a qualm and
made his decision. There was no need to wait about any longer.
A quick flip of the helmet lock, a moment's unpleasantness perhaps, and
out. As for the rest--a spaceman needs no sanctified ground, the
incorruptible vault of space is as good a place as any and perhaps the
more fitting for one of the first to travel its ways.
Well then--quickly. Johnny raised his hands.