McNary looked at the chronometer and said, "Three quarters of an hour
to passage. We'd better suit up."
* * * * *
Morgan nodded and reached again into the suit locker. The top suit was
McNary's, and as he worked his way into it, Morgan and Kaufman pressed
against the walls to give him room. Kaufman was next, and then Morgan.
They sat out the helmets, and while Kaufman and McNary made a final
check of the equipment, Morgan took several sights to verify their
position.
"Luck," said Kaufman, and dropped his helmet over his head. The others
followed and they all went through the air-sealing check-off. They
passed the telephone wire around, and tested the circuit. Morgan handed
out extra oxygen flasks, three for each. Kaufman waved, squeezed into
the air lock and pulled the hatch closed behind him. McNary went next,
then Morgan.
Morgan carefully pulled himself erect alongside the outer hatch and
plugged the telephone jack into his helmet. As he straightened, he saw
the Earth directly in front of him. It loomed large, visible as a great
mass of blackness cutting off the harsh white starshine. The blackness
was smudged with irregular patches of orangish light that marked the
cities of Earth.
Morgan became aware that McNary, beside him, was pointing toward the
center of the Earth. Following the line of his finger Morgan could see
a slight flicker of light against the blackness; it was so faint that
he had to look above it to see it.
"Storm," said McNary. "Just below the equator. It must be a pip if we
can see the lightning through the clouds from here. I've been watching
it develop for the last two days."
Morgan stared, and nodded to himself. He knew what it was like down
there. The familiar feeling was building up, stronger now as the
time to passage drew closer. First the waiting. The sea, restless
in expectancy as the waves tossed their hoary manes. The gathering
majesty of the elements, reaching, searching, striving.... And if at
the height of the contest the screaming wind snatched up and smothered
a defiant roar from a mortal throat, there was none to tell of it.
Then the time came when the forces waned. A slight let-up at first,
then another. Soon the toothed and jagged edge of the waves subsided,
the hard side-driven spray and rain assumed a more normal direction.
The man looked after the departing storm, and there was pain in his
eyes, longing. Almost, the words rose to his lips, "Come back, I am
still here, do not leave me, come back." But the silent supplication
went unanswered, and the man was left with a taste of glory gone,
with an emptiness that drained the soul. The encounter had ended, the
man had won. But the winning was bitter. The hard fight was not hard
enough. Somewhere there must be a test sufficient to try the mettle of
this man. Somewhere there was a crucible hot enough to float any dross.
But where? The man searched and searched, but could not find it.
Morgan turned his head away from the storm and saw that Kaufman and
McNary had walked to the top of the satellite. Carefully he turned his
body and began placing one foot in front of the other to join them.
Yes, he thought, men must always be on top, even if the top is only a
state of mind. Here on the outer surface of the satellite, clinging
to the metallic skin with shoes of magnetized alloy, there was no
top. One direction was the same as another, as with a fly walking on a
chandelier. Yet some primordial impulse drove a man to that position
which he considered the top, drove him to stand with his feet pointed
toward the Earth and his head toward the outer reaches where the stars
moved.
Walking under these conditions was difficult, so Morgan moved with
care. The feet could easily tread ahead of the man without his knowing
it, or they could lag behind. A slight unthinking motion could detach
the shoes from the satellite, leaving the man floating free, unable to
return. So Morgan moved with care, keeping the telephone line clear
with one hand.
When he reached the others, Morgan stopped and looked around. The sight
always gave him pause. It was not pretty; rather, it was harsh and
garish like the raucous illumination of a honkytonk saloon. The black
was too black, and the stars burned too white. Everything appeared
sharp and hard, with none of the softness seen from the Earth.
Morgan stared, and his lips curled back over his teeth. The
anticipation inside him grew greater. No sound and fury here; the
menace was of a different sort. Looming, quietly foreboding, it was
everywhere.
Morgan leaned back to look overhead, and his lips curled further.
This was where it might come, this was the place. Raw space, where a
man moved and breathed in momentary peril, where cosmic debris formed
arrow-swift reefs on which to founder, where star-born particles
traveled at unthinkable speeds out of the macrocosm seeking some
fragile microcosm to shatter.
"Sun." Kaufman's voice echoed tinnily inside the helmet. Morgan brought
his head down. There, ahead, a tinge of deep red edged a narrow segment
of the black Earth. The red brightened rapidly, and broadened. Morgan
reached to one side of his helmet and dropped a filter into place; he
continued to stare at the sun.
* * * * *