"What is it Mike?" Sid's voice came in my ear.
"Trouble," I said. "What did we expect?"
"Roger," he said in that toneless unexcited astronauts' voice. "Return
to ship, Mike."
"Not now," I said. "I've just got the oyster opened."
His voice cut like my drill-bit. "I ordered you to return to ship.
Your air supply is about shot."
"I haven't been out that long," I protested, not feeling too sure
about the lapse of time.
"Your drill chewed it up pretty fast. Quit talking and start moving."
I was thankful for the experience of moving in close to the bird. The
same tricks worked much more smoothly as I used my deflection plate in
front of my belly blast to turn me to face the floodlight, and then
followed up with a light shove or two in the spine to start me
drifting toward _Nelly Bly_. There didn't seem any rush, and I drifted
slowly over, using only a couple triggered bursts of deceleration to
slow me down as I approached the open hatch.
Inside we went through the drill. My ears popped a little as Sid
unchucked my spent tanks, and popped again as the new ones came on
with a hiss.
"Take it easy on that steering fuel, Mike," he said again. "You're
getting awfully low."
"Sure," I said and let myself drift out the hatch. I had enough sense
to twist so that my back jet wouldn't hit the ship. Then I took a
zig-zag course through the darkness to my bird, got oriented at the
open gate and went back to work. Before I could get started, my
earphones spoke.
"Mike, Cleary here."
"Roger, Paul. What is it?"
"Have you gotten to that solenoid yet?"
"Yes."
"What can you tell me?"
"That you're a fathead. Now shut up. I'm busy."
"Roger, Mike," Paul Cleary acknowledged quite meekly.
So I started again, reaching with my leads from point to point. After
a certain number of tests, I had the area isolated, but not the part.
From here on it would have to be disassembly. Every tiny screw had to
be heated, then teased out with a jeweler's screwdriver. Some took my
patented ratchet extension. The big miracle was that I didn't break
anything.
[Illustration]
When I got to it, it was ridiculous. A small length of wire connected
one component to another. Space was lacking, and the wire was tight
against the metal of the gate. Its insulation was one of these
space-age wonders, a form of clear plastic that would remain ductile
under zero temperature and pressure. Only it didn't. It had shrunk and
cracked, and there was a simple short against the metal of the gate.
There were so many forms of circuit-breakers and self-protectors in
the machine that the whole gate had been switched off as long as the
short was in existence. No wonder telemetry hadn't told us anything.
As I prepared to fix the trouble, I switched on my radio and had Sid
connect me with the ground. "Canaveral Control," one of those
emotionless voices said. He could afford to be. He was on the ground.
"Get me Cleary," I ordered.
"Cleary here, Mike. What have you found, boy?" He sure was anxious
about that solenoid.
"Not much, Paul. Just that Fred Stone is a fathead, too. Over and out,
like they say." I switched off and went back to my work.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
The one thing I had nothing of was any kind of insulating material.
With my screwdriver I hacked a piece loose from the double-faced
sticky-tape I had used to keep loose parts from flying around, and
teased it under the wire with my tweezers. Perhaps I could have done
as well by heating the wire and bending it straight, but there was
little room, and I was afraid of melting a solder joint. So I took my
time teasing the tape through and finally got it to act as an
insulator without breaking the wire. How long it would stay there was
anybody's guess. It was held mechanically as well as by its sticky
action, but when the bird cooled off enough, the sticky effect would
lessen. I hoped the pressure between the wire and the gate could be
enough to keep it in place. Certainly no forces would be acting to
move it.
Just as I had figured, the reassembly was the tedious part. I had to
move around into about sixteen screwy positions to do all the fixing.
Finally it was back in one piece and I swung the gate closed.
When the final 4-40's were run up as tight as they were supposed to be
run, I reported to Paul Cleary. "Try her," I suggested. "I think I
found the trouble. No point my coming back down if it doesn't work."
They made me sweat it out for about ten minutes before Paul said,
"Runs like a watch, Mike. Put the spin back on her, boy." At least he
was quiet about his solenoid.
This called for the second rocket canister, which I hooked on to the
girdle and, after thinking it out carefully, got headed in the right
direction. I eased away with finger pressure, and let the delayed fuse
do the firing. Telstar started her slow spin again.
Getting the girdle off was a lot harder than getting it on, something
we hadn't figured on, and in the final stages of the job I found that
my steering motors no longer fired.
[Illustration]
"Sid!"
"Roger, Mike."
"How much fuel do you read in my steering jets?"
"You've been out of fuel for about five minutes, by my gauge. But
don't worry about it," Sid said. "I'll nurse _Nelly_ over there with
my steering jets and pick you up."
"O.K.," I said doubtfully. "But watch it. Bump this bird and we'll
have it all to do over again."
Sid had more trouble than he had figured. He had steering jets to run
him in every direction except fore and aft. For that motion the
retro-rockets were considered enough. But one belch out of them was
enough to get me screaming into the mike: "Cut those retros!" I
yelled, the volume making my earphones crack, as it undoubtedly did
his.
"Roger. What's wrong?"
"You'll burn the solar generators right off the bird, you fool!
Steering jets, do you hear, steering jets!"
"Roger."
But it was not that easy. Finally Sid got _Nelly_ within about twenty
feet, and pretty near at zero relative velocity.
"All right, Sid," I said. "Hold it there. I'll push over."
A gentle shove against the side of Telstar was all it took. I got it
straight, which was all that counted. My drift was slow, and I was a
good five minutes making the twenty-foot crossing. But a handhold came
within reach, and I worked my way back into the cabin and climbed in
without shutting the hatch.
"Don't try that again," I cautioned him. "This thing weighs ten
thousand pounds, and that bird half as much. Even at a couple feet a
second, you can crush me to jelly between them, even if you don't burn
one or the other of us to a crisp."
"Roger," Sid said, not quite so emotionlessly. "Are we ready to move?"
"What for?" I asked him. "Until we get me some steering fuel, I'm
useless."
"I thought we'd abort this mission before we were through," he
sneered.
"Not so fast. You've got the same rig on your suit. All we have to do
is put your fuel tanks on my suit."
"Are you nuts?" he demanded.
"What's the matter with it? Those tanks aren't welded to you, and I've
got tools."
I could see him shake his head in the dim light from the instrument
panel. "You know those fuels ignite on contact with each other," he
pointed out. "If we spill a couple drops of each in here, and they
vaporize, we'll blow this kite to pieces!"
"Then we'll get outside to make the switch," I insisted. "It won't
hurt anything if a few grams burn up out there, will it, with nothing
to confine the expansion."
"But then I won't be able to come after you if anything goes wrong,"
he pointed out. "No dice."
"You're grasping, Stein," I growled. "At this stage I'm in charge
around here. I'll take my chances on getting back."
* * * * *
With the cabin light on I went as far as possible in dismounting both
our tanks. After a couple rehearsals to make sure that at least one of
us would always have a glove on a handhold, we both climbed out the
hatch and I made the switch. Just as Sid suspected, we spilled a few
drops. They vaporized, and again as we had feared, combined in what
would have been an explosion in a confined space. The soundless flash,
dim but real, said we had released quite a little energy uniformly all
around us. I never felt a thing except a faint warmth from infrared
through my helmet.
Best of all, my jets worked. We both climbed back aboard _Nelly_,
dogged the hatch, and started after Telstar Two.
The second bird was about fifteen thousand miles ahead of us. I slept
most of the time, for after Sid gave us a jolt of added velocity, we
had to settle down to about six hours of drifting. I woke up as the
belt cut me when he fired the retros. We went through the radar and
searchlight bit, and had the devil's own time finding our bird. But at
last I got the flash of reflection and went to work.
I won't say the second job was any easier, except for the fact that I
removed only one part to make room to do my bit with the insulation,
and thus had very few screws to replace. My navigating in space was a
lot better, and I didn't use steering fuel as wastefully as the first
time. Still, when we dogged down to chase after the final bird, the
cabin gauge said that I had less than half my load of steering fuel
left. Equally glum, _Nelly_ herself was even lower on steering fuel.
Neither Sid nor I had been as expert as we were supposed to be.
Nevertheless, we took off after the third bird, and found it
glistening in bright sunlight without the help of the searchlight. I
thought that was a good omen. But from there on nothing seemed to work
right.
We had been aloft about thirty-six hours, and fatigue was setting in.
I was clumsy on the steering and had quite a time making contact.
The repair went according to Hoyle, but after I had put the spin back
on the bird I found that I had no more steering fuel. I hung about ten
or fifteen feet from Telstar Three and maybe eighty feet from _Nelly_,
drifting slowly from both.
"Sid!"
"Roger, Mike."
"This one will have to make it with the girdle on."
"Can't you get it off?"
"I can't get back to it. Steering fuel gone."
"Oh, no!"
"No sweat, Sid. It occludes a small share of the solar generators, but
not enough to hurt anything."
"That's not what I meant," he said quietly into my ear. "_Nelly's_ out
of steering fuel, too. I can't pick you up!"