Man has his pride and his vanity. Johnny, though not necessarily prone
to inflated valuation of himself still has just enough vanity left to
resent the thought of this anonymous snuffing out in the dark. There
should be, he thought, at least some outward evidence of his passing,
something like--a flare of light perhaps, that would in effect say, if
only to one solitary star gazer: "Here at this position, at this
instant, Johnny Melland, Spaceman, had his time."
The whimsy persisted. Johnny, casting about mentally for some means to
the end recalled the thermite bomb for the WD cylinder and was hauling
himself in to it when he remembered the charges for this lot had gone up
with Sally Uncle One two days before. But now he'd actually touched the
metal cylinder and, as though the brief contact had completed some
obscure mental circuit, the mad idea was conceived, flared up into an
irrepressible brilliance and exploded in a harsh bark of laughter.
One last push to his luck then, hardly worse than a gambler's last chip
except that the consequences of failure were somewhat more certain.
Either way he'd have what he wanted--survival or, in the brief
incandescence of friction's heat, a declaration of his passing.
A waste disposal cylinder will carry the equivalent of about three tons
of refuse. Its motor is designed to decelerate that mass by 1,075 mph in
order to allow it to assume a descending orbit.
Less the greater part of the customary mass, it should be considerably
more effective, and since he was already in what constituted a descent
path, but for a few miles and a little extra velocity, there would not
be the long fall afterwards to pick up what he'd lost.
* * * * *
From there on his plan entered the realm of pure hypothesis; except for
the broad detail the rest depended on luck and whatever freakish
conditions might arise in his favor during the operation. These, too,
would be beyond his control and any move to take advantage of them would
have to be instinctive, providing he was in any shape to do so.
The tendency to gnaw worriedly at a thousand disturbing possibilities
drowned quickly in a rapidly rising sense of reckless abandon that
possessed him. The prospect of positive action of any sort served to
release any tension left in him and almost gayly he moved to set his
plan in action.
He jimmied the timer on the rocket motor so it would fire to the last
drop. The string of ribbon chutes he reeled in hand over hand stuffing
it into the cylinder, discovering in the process why the chute Section
hands at Base wore that harried look. The mass of slithering,
incompressible white-and-yellow ribbon and its shrouds resisted him like
a live thing; in the end Johnny managed to bat and maul the obstreperous
stuff down the length of the tank. Even so, it filled it to within a
couple of inches of the opening.
[Illustration]
Now he cut off a length of his life line and attached one end to the
spring-loaded trigger release on the motor control, leaving enough to
trail the length of the cylinder and double back inside when he wanted
it. He blessed the economically minded powers that insisted on manual
firing control on these one-shot units instead of the complex radio
triggers beloved of the technical brains.
Making fast to the chutes was a major problem but eventually he managed
a makeshift harness of the remainder of the safety line. He wound it
awkwardly around himself with as many turns as possible, each returned
again and again through, the ring at the end of the master shroud.
By now he was casting anxious glances at the Earth below, aware that he
must have passed apogee several minutes before and that not more than
some twenty minutes were left before the low point of this swing would
be near. He was grimly aware also that it must be this time or not at
all. The air telltale was well through the yellow band and the next
possible chance after this one was an hour's time away, when conditions
inside the suit would be getting pretty sticky.
Jockeying the unwieldy cylinder into line of flight and making it stay
there took a lot longer than Johnny counted on. With no other manual
purchase than that afforded by his own lesser mass, the job proved
almost impossible and he had to use his suit motor. This caused some
concern over his meager fuel supply since his plan called for some
flat-out jetting later on. In the frantic flurry of bending, twisting,
over and under--controlling, the veneer of aplomb began to wear. Johnny
was sweating freely by the time he had the cylinder stabilized as best
he could judge and had gingerly worked himself into the open end as far
as he could against the cushioning mass of ribbon chute. He took the
trigger lanyard loosely in hand and craning his neck to see past the
bulk of the cylinder he watched and waited.
* * * * *
To the experienced lift pilot there are certain subtle changes in color
values over the Earth's surface as one approaches more closely the outer
fringe of atmosphere. While braking approaches are auto-controlled, the
pilot taking over only after his ship is in atmosphere, the
conscientious man makes himself familiar with the "feel" of a visually
timed approach--just in case--and Johnny was a good pilot.
Watching Equatorial Africa sliding obliquely towards him Johnny suddenly
gave thought to a possible landing spot for the first time. Not that he
had any choice but a picture of a cold, wet immersion in any of several
possible bodies of water was not encouraging. The suit would probably
float but which end first was a matter for conjecture and out of it he
would be as badly off for Johnny could not swim a stroke.
Nor had he any clear idea how long it would take to slow down to a
vertical drop. Able Jake made a full half swing of the globe to brake
down but Able Jake was an ultra-streamlined object with many times the
mass and weight of Johnny and his rig; furthermore the ships were
controllable to a certain degree while Johnny was not. Beyond the
certain knowledge that the effect of the chutes would be quite violent
and probably short-lived, the rest was unpredictable.
He tried to shake off gloomy speculation, uneasily aware that much of
the carefree confidence of the last hour had deserted him. In a more
normal state of mind again he became prey to tension once more, a
pounding heart and dry mouth recalling mercilessly the essential
frailties of his kind. So, with aching neck and burning eyes he strained
for a clear view past the length of the cylinder and--
There! The preliminary to the visual changes, a sudden sweep of
distortion over the landscape as his angle of sight through the
refracting particles became more shallow. Now was the time he had judged
the throat vane gyros should begin their run-up.
He worked the lanyard back carefully, fearful an awkward movement might
upset the cylinder's line-up, pulling the trigger lever over to
half-cock where the micro switch should complete circuit with the dry
power pack. There should be approximately one minute before the major
color changes began, which was also the minimum time for gyro run up.
Johnny resumed the watching and the waiting.
How long is a minute?
Is it the time it takes the fear-frozen trainee, staring glass-eyed at
the fumbled grenade to realize that this one at his feet is a dud?
Or is it the time before the rock-climber, clinging nail and toe to the
rock face with the rope snapped suddenly taut, feels it at last slacken
and sees the hands gripping safely come into sight?
Perhaps the greenhorn, rifle a-waver, watching the glimpse of tawny
color in the veldt-grass and waiting the thunder and the charge, could
say.
They'd all be wrong. It's much longer.
Long enough for Johnny to think of a dozen precautions he could have
taken, a dozen better ways to rig this or that. Long enough to worry
about whether the gyros were really running up as they should. A
thousand queries and doubts piled mountainously upward to an almost
unbearable peak of tension till suddenly the browns and greens below
flashed a shade lighter and it was time, and the savage snap on the
lanyard a blessed relief and total committal.
* * * * *
In the few seconds after the firing of the prime and before the busy
little timer snapped the valves wide open Johnny managed to slip his
toes under the jet pedals to avoid accidental firing. At the same time
he braced himself as rigidly as possible with aching arms against the
walls of the cylinder.
He saw briefly the flare of the jet reflected off the remnants of his
cloud of station stores before deceleration with all its unpleasantness
began.
The lip of the cylinder's mouth swept up past his helmet as he was
rammed deep into the absorbent mass of ribbon chute. This wasn't a
padded contour chair under a mild 3G lift. The chutes took the first
shock, but Johnny took the rest the hard way, standing bolt upright.
He found with some surprise his head was right down through the neck
ring and inside the suit proper, his arms half withdrawn from the
sleeves, knees buckled to an almost unbelievable angle considering the
dimensions of the lower case.
He had time to hope fervently the cheap expendable motor wouldn't burn
out its throat and send him cart-wheeling through space, or blow the
surrounding tanks before the blackout came down.
He came out of it sluggishly, to find the relief from the dreadful
pressure almost as stupefying as the deceleration itself. While his
conscious mind screamed the urgency of immediate action, his bruised and
twisted body answered but feebly. The condition of complete
weightlessness and the springy reaction of the ribbon mass was all that
allowed him finally to claw himself out of the cylinder to where he
could use the suit jet without fear of burning the precious chutes.
He was so tired. His muscles of their own accord seemed to relax
intermittently, interfering with the control of his movements. Only the
sudden sight of the Earth, transformed by a weird illusion of position
from a bright goal to an enormous, distorted thing, looming, apparently,
over him with glowing menace, spurred his flagging resolution to frantic
activity.
He jetted straight back trailing his string of chutes behind him, then,
before the last was free of the cylinder, kicked himself around to
assume the original course once more.
At this stage it was no longer possible, even granted the time, to judge
visually how near he was to the atmosphere. The uneasy feeling that he
must already be brushing the Troposphere jarred his nerve so that he
merely gave himself a short flat-out boost in the right direction before
spinning bodily one hundred eighty degrees so that he was traveling feet
first.
Reflected in the curved helmet face, the string of chutes obediently
followed-my-leader around a ragged U-shape, the last--the small
pilot-chute trailed limply around as he watched.
There could surely be but a few seconds left before the grand finale.
Johnny found he was unconsciously holding his breath, and, as he
deliberately inhaled long slow draughts of his already staling air,
realized abstractly that he seemed to be attempting to meet his possible
end with some degree of dignity if not with resignation, and wondered
if he were the exception or the rule.
Possibly, he thought sardonically, because there is so little room for
dignity in our living years, and was mildly surprised at an
uncharacteristic excursion into the realm of philosophy.
There was a faintly perceptible tug on the harness. It was sustained and
now there came a definite strain. Reflected for a moment in the helmet
face was a glimpse of the lead chute slowly opening out like a gigantic
flower.
Then swiftly, in half a breath the harness coils were tightening about
him like steel fingers, the heavy ring at the end of the master shroud
clashed against the back of his helmet and began a sickening, thrumming
vibration there.
The harness encompassed his torso like a vise but his legs were
unsupported and weighed what seemed a thousand tons. He could feel them
stretching. Somewhere a coil slipped a fraction. His arms were jerked
suddenly upwards and Johnny knew a sensation he'd never believed
possible. At the same time his leaden feet crashed down on the jet
pedals. For a few, brief, blessed moments the intolerable extension
eased a fraction with the firing of the suit jets.
He cringed mentally from the thought of what was to come and thought
hazily: "This is what the rack was like. This is going to be bad, bad,
bad!"
It was impossible and Johnny went out with the last drop of fuel.
* * * * *
Somewhere there was a queer coughing sound like wind through a crevice.
He strained to identify it but an awful agony swamped him and he fled
before it back into the darkness.
And later still a thumping and a rushing, gurgling sound.
* * * * *
Dim, grotesque figures moved about him or swooped and hovered over him.
He felt an unreasoning fear of them and tried to shut them out. They
were holding him down, hurting him. One was pulling and twisting at his
arm. He shouted and swore at it telling it to leave him alone, but it
ignored him or didn't seem to hear. There was a sudden dull snapping
sound and a little of the pain abated.
The figures flowed together and swirled around like some great oily
vortex but never quite left him.
Then there was a time when they separated jerkily and became the hazy
but definable figures of men in rough seaman's clothes. Johnny had never
heard Breton French before; in his dazed condition the apparently insane
gabble might well have been the tongue of another world and gave him
little assurance. He hurt so badly and so generally that he could not
have determined that he was lying down save for a view of white clouds
scudding overhead.
Some of the men were holding up what looked like a crumpled parody of a
man. He recognized it without surprise as the soaking remains of his
spacesuit, battered and with tattered shreds of outer cover and
insulation hanging in festoons.
A sharp, bearded face shot into focus abruptly, waving a hypodermic
needle. It spoke English and observed passionately either to Johnny or
itself that: "Name of a Spanish cow! What is it in men that they must
abuse themselves so? Now here is one who was both squeezed and stretched
alternately as well as hammered, dehydrated and almost asphyxiated, is
it not? This will bear watching. It is alive but there will have to be
X-rays in profusion."
It danced long sensitive fingers over the welts and bruises and
commented bluntly that it was well the fishermen had returned his arms
and legs into their sockets before he fully regained consciousness. It
muttered and clucked to itself as it used the hypo which Johnny could
not feel. "Formidable!"
The pleasant drowsiness came down just as he was identifying the queer
smell as ozone, brine and good fresh air.
After a while they moved him to a small hospital in an upcoast town,
where he slept much, suffered not a little and, even waking, viewed the
world incuriously through drug-laden eyes. Finally they allowed him to
waken fully and the sharp-faced doctor, together with half a dozen
others from various parts of the world decided that, after all, he
seemed to be surviving.
Johnny lay and itched intolerably in the cast that covered him from nape
to thigh and listened to the bustling of the elderly nursing sister who,
good soul, having never been more than ten miles from her town in her
life, reminded him that it wanted but two days to Christmas and opined
that: "Such a tragedy for M'sieu. To be so far from home!"
Johnny smiled at the ceiling, not daring to laugh yet, and sniffed at
the salt sea air with its undertone of rank seaweed and gloried in it;
even a chance whiff of that particular cigarette tobacco that only a
Frenchman can appreciate. He thought that here, as across the water,
night and day followed each other in their proper order and the ground
was a solid thing beneath the feet.
Why--he could never be closer.