The deck of the control room began to throb with the power of the huge
ionized particle engines. On the screen the traction line began to
straighten between the two ships. Its still slack loop twisted like a
dying snake between the forces that played over it. Then it tautened.
"It's moving toward us," Skip said aloud. No one answered him. Their
eyes were too tightly fixed to the screens.
Suddenly the Cerebus III began to whip right and left. Stevens roughly
pushed the pilot from his seat and made some quick moves on the
controls. The yawing stopped, but when they looked at the screens, the
Regis was once more at a distance, and the traction line was slack.
Stevens looked at the menacing sides of the sunspot. Actually there
were no real sides--they were like the sides of a tornado in a mass
of air. Here in the interior of the spot, their main problem was to
balance the ship against the force of the rising column of gases from
the mouth of the spot inside the sun's photosphere, and to adjust
their position to the constantly downward drift of the Regis. There
was a maximum distance that they could afford to let the Regis drift
downward if they wished to save her. Now that they were close to the
photosphere, the drag of the sun's 27 G's was greater than it had been
out at 10,000 miles. If they managed to pull the Regis close enough for
a transfer, it would have to be in the next hour.
"We'll have to take a chance," Stevens said.
Once more he called the engine room. "Throw them in full when I say
go," he instructed.
Bull looked at Skip. He smiled and it didn't take words for his
thoughts to become clear. _Now you will see some real power from a good
ship._
"Let her go."
The deck leaped to life, reacting to the blows of countless millions of
quanta of light as free electrons attached themselves to the stripped
nuclei in the discharge chambers of the ship's engines.
* * * * *
The ship began to whip again; but the agile fingers of Captain Stevens
brought her swiftly under control.
Skip smiled at Bull. His glance, too, was full of meaning. It said
plainly, _this should show you that this ship isn't as good as you
think it is!_
The men in the room had to hang on to the sides as the ship, the sun
and Captain Stevens fought a duel with one another for control of the
Cerebus III and the Regis.
The thin traction line stretched taut once more between them. How much
strain could it take? flashed though Skip's mind. Then one torn end
seemed to be floating toward the Cerebus III, the other floated toward
the Regis.
For a split second the Cerebus III seemed to hang in space. Then
everyone was flung violently in all directions as the force of the
Cerebus III's engines on full power, plus the reaction of the ship's
freedom from the drag of the Regis, shot the salvage vessel into space
and plastered the crew against the nearest bulkheads.
Skip came unwillingly back to consciousness. Some of the control room
crew were already on their feet. Others were still lying quietly trying
to regain their senses before they tried to get to their feet. A few of
the men would never move again.
The thrum of the engines had stopped.
Captain Stevens was cursing silently in front of the controls.
"Fouled," he spat. "That damn line must have whipped right into the
stern discharge tubes and sealed them up so that we have no forward
propulsive power. And look out there." He waved his arm at the screens.
The ship had been flung thousands of miles out from its former
position. Once more it appeared to be on the outer edge of the
chromosphere. The Regis was not in sight. The constantly changing view
in the vision panels indicated that the Cerebus III was spinning.
This Captain Stevens corrected while speaking to the men. "Clean up
the mess in here. Get the injured to the sick bay; and take care of
the dead. We're in the same difficulty as the Regis. Our anti-gray and
anti-heat units are working but the indicators show them losing power
slowly. We must free those tubes or sooner or later we'll end up in
the sun. Let's get down to the outer lock room and see what we can do."
Bull and Skip followed the rest through the big ship. When they got to
the lock room, Malcolm, his face white with pain from some injury, was
struggling into a solar suit. One of the crew snapped the helmet over
his head and handed him a cutting torch. Before any of the new arrivals
could say a word, Malcolm was in the lock and on his way outside.
Suddenly one of the lock tenders exclaimed. "My God, he took a suit
with a discharged anti-heat unit filler. If his refrigerant cuts off
while he's out there--"
Bull grabbed another suit from its peg and began to draw it on. Captain
Stevens grabbed his arm and shouted.
"Hold it, Ensign, you're under arrest. We'll send--"
"There's a man out there," interrupted Bull. "You said this was do or
die, didn't you? Let me go."