Part 19 (1/2)
The Navigator slipped a notebook out of his tunic. ”Three hundred fifty-eight miles per second; course is right ascension fifteen hours, eight minutes, twenty-seven seconds, declination minus seven degrees, three minutes; solar distance one hundred and ninety-two million four hundred eighty thousand miles. Our radial position is twelve degrees above course, and almost dead on course in R.A. Do you want Sol's co-ordinates?”
”No, not now.” The captain bent over the calculator, frowned and chewed the tip of his tongue as he worked the controls. ”I want you to kill the acceleration about one million miles inside Eighty-eight's...o...b..t. I hate to waste the fuel, but the belt is full of junk and this d.a.m.ned rock is so small that we will probably have to run a search curve. Use twenty hours on deceleration and commence changing course to port after eight hours. Use normal asymptotic approach. You should have her in a circular trajectory abreast of Eighty-eight, and paralleling her orbit by six o'clock tomorrow morning. I shall want to be called at three.”
”Aye aye, sir.”
”Let me see your figures when you get 'em. I'll send up the order book later.”
The transport accelerated on schedule. Shortly after three the Captain entered the control room and blinked his eyes at the darkness. The sun was still concealed by the hull of the transport and the midnight blackness was broken only by the dim blue glow of the instrument dials, and the crack of light from under the chart hood. The Navigator turned at the familiar tread.
”Good morning, Captain.”
”Morning, Blackie. In sight yet?”
”Not yet. We've picked out half a dozen rocks, but none of them checked.”
”Any of them close?”
”Not uncomfortably. We've overtaken a little sand from time to time.”
”That can't hurt us -- not on a stern chase like this. If pilots would only realize that the asteroids flow in fixed directions at computable speeds n.o.body would come to grief out here.” He stopped to light a cigarette. ”People talk about s.p.a.ce being dangerous. Sure, it used to be; but I don't know of a case in the past twenty years that couldn't be charged up to some fool's recklessness.”
”You're right, Skipper. By the way, there's coffee under the chart hood.”
”Thanks; I had a cup down below.” He walked over by the lookouts at stereoscopes and radar tanks and peered up at the star-flecked blackness. Three cigarettes later the lookout nearest him called out.
”Light ho!”
”Where away?”
His mate read the exterior dials of the stereoscope. ”Plus point two, abaft one point three, slight drift astern.” He s.h.i.+fted to radar and added, ”Range seven nine oh four three.”
”Does that check?”
”Could be, Captain. What is her disk?” came the Navigator's m.u.f.fled voice from under the hood. The first lookout hurriedly twisted the k.n.o.bs of his instrument, but the Captain nudged him aside.
”I'll do this, son.” He fitted his face to the double eye guards and surveyed a little silvery sphere, a tiny moon. Carefully he brought two illuminated cross-hairs up until they were exactly tangent to the upper and lower limbs of the disk. ”Mark!”
The reading was noted and pa.s.sed to the Navigator, who shortly ducked out from under the hood.
”That's our baby, Captain.”
”Good.”
”Shall I make a visual triangulation?”
”Let the watch officer do that. You go down and get some sleep. I'll ease her over until we get close enough to use the optical range finder.”
”Thanks, I will.”
Within a few minutes the word had spread around the s.h.i.+p that Eighty-eight had been sighted. Libby crowded into the starboard troop deck with a throng of excited mess mates and attempted to make out their future home from the view port. McCoy poured cold water on their excitement.
”By the time that rock shows up big enough to tell anything about it with your naked eye we'll be at our grounding stations. She's only about a hundred miles thick, yuh know.”
And so it was. Many hours later the s.h.i.+p's announcer shouted: ”All hands! Man your grounding stations. Close all airtight doors. Stand by to cut blowers on signal.”
McCoy forced them to lie down throughout the ensuing two hours. Short shocks of rocket blasts alternated with nauseating weightlessness. Then the blowers stopped and check valves clicked into their seats. The s.h.i.+p dropped free for a few moments -- a final quick blast -- five seconds of falling, and a short, light, grinding b.u.mp. A single bugle note came over the announcer, and the blowers took up their hum.
McCoy floated lightly to his feet and poised, swaying, on his toes. ”All out, troops -- this is the end of the line.”
A short chunky lad, a little younger than most of them, awkwardly emulated him, and bounded toward the door, shouting as he went, ”Come on, fellows! Let's go outside and explore!”
The Master-at-Arms squelched him. ”Not so fast, kid. Aside from the fact that there is no air out there, go right ahead. You'll freeze to death, burn to death, and explode like a ripe tomato. Squad leader, detail six men to break out s.p.a.cesuits. The rest of you stay here and stand by.”
The working party returned shortly loaded down with a couple of dozen bulky packages. Libby let go the four he carried and watched them float gently to the deck. McCoy unzipped the envelope from one suit, and lectured them about it, ”This is a standard service type, general issue, Mark IV, Modification 2.” He grasped the suit by the shoulders and shook it out so that it hung like a suit of long winter underwear with the helmet lolling helplessly between the shoulders of the garment. ”It's self-sustaining for eight hours, having an oxygen supply for that period. It also has a nitrogen trim tank and a carbon dioxide water-vapor cartridge filter.”
He droned on, repeating practically verbatim the description and instructions given in training regulations. McCoy knew these suits like his tongue knew the roof of his mouth; the knowledge had meant his life on more than one occasion.
”The suit is woven from gla.s.s fibre laminated with nonvolatile asbesto-cellut.i.te. The resulting fabric is flexible, very durable; and will turn all rays normal to solar s.p.a.ce outside the orbit of Mercury. It is worn over your regular clothing, but notice the wire-braced accordion pleats at the major joints. They are so designed as to keep the internal volume of the suit nearly constant when the arms or legs are bent. Otherwise the gas pressure inside would tend to keep the suit blown up in an erect position and movement while wearing the suit would be very fatiguing.
”The helmet is moulded from a transparent silicone, leaded and polarized against too great ray penetration. It may be equipped with external visors of any needed type. Orders are to wear not less than a number-two amber on this body. In addition, a lead plate covers the cranium and extends on down the back of the suit, completely covering the spinal column.
”The suit is equipped with two-way telephony. If your radio quits, as these have a habit of doing, you can talk by putting your helmets in contact. Any questions?”
”How do you eat and drink during the eight hours?”
”You don't stay in 'em any eight hours. You can carry sugar b.a.l.l.s in a gadget in the helmet, but you boys will always eat at the base. As for water, there's a nipple in the helmet near your mouth which you can reach by turning your head to the left. It's hooked to a built-in canteen. But don't drink any more water when you're wearing a suit than you have to. These suits ain't got any plumbing.”
Suits were pa.s.sed out to each lad, and McCoy ill.u.s.trated how to don one. A suit was spread supine on the deck, the front zipper that stretched from neck to crotch was spread wide and one sat down inside this opening, whereupon the lower part was drawn on like long stockings. Then a wiggle into each sleeve and the heavy flexible gauntlets were smoothed and patted into place. Finally an awkward backward stretch of the neck with shoulders hunched enabled the helmet to be placed over the head.
Libby followed the motions of McCoy and stood up in his suit. He examined the zipper which controlled the suit's only opening. It was backed by two soft gaskets which would be pressed together by the zipper and sealed by internal air pressure. Inside the helmet a composition mouthpiece for exhalation led to the filter.
McCoy bustled around, inspecting them, tightening a belt here and there, instructing them in the use of the external controls. Satisfied, he reported to the conning room that his section had received basic instruction and was ready to disembark. Permission was received to take them out for thirty minutes acclimatization.
Six at a time, he escorted them through the air-lock, and out on the surface of the planetoid. Libby blinked his eyes at the unaccustomed l.u.s.ter of suns.h.i.+ne on rock. Although the sun lay more than two hundred million miles away and bathed the little planet with radiation only one fifth as strong as that lavished on mother Earth, nevertheless the lack of atmosphere resulted in a glare that made him squint. He was glad to have the protection of his amber visor. Overhead the sun, shrunk to penny size, shone down from a dead black sky in which unwinking stars crowded each other and the very sun itself.
The voice of a mess mate sounded in Libby's earphones. ”Jeepers! That horizon looks close. I'll bet it ain't more'n a mile away.”
Libby looked out over the flat bare plain and subconsciously considered the matter. ”It's less,” he commented, ”than a third of a mile away.”
”What the h.e.l.l do you know about it, Pinkie? And who asked you, anyhow?”
Libby answered defensively, ”As a matter of fact, it's one thousand six hundred and seventy feet, figuring that my eyes are five feet three inches above ground level.”
”Nuts. Pinkie, you are always trying to show off how much you think you know.”
”Why, I am not,” Libby protested. ”If this body is a hundred miles thick and as round as it looks: why, naturally the horizon has to be just that far away.”
”Says who?”