Part 2 (1/2)
He punched the general alarm b.u.t.ton viciously, and the raucous clangor of the bell sounded through the confines of the s.h.i.+p. One by one, the other crew members popped up to the control deck from below.
He turned the controls over to Qoqol.
”Take readings on that d.a.m.n tug,” Jonner ordered. ”I think our cable broke. T'an, let's go take a look.”
When they got outside, they found about a foot of the one-inch cable still attached to the s.h.i.+p. The rest of it, drawn away by the tug before Jonner could cut acceleration, was out of sight.
”Can it be welded, T'an?”
”It can, but it'll take a while,” replied the engineer slowly. ”First, we'll have to reverse that tug and get the other end of that break.”
”d.a.m.n, and the radio control's burned out. I tried to reverse it before I sounded the alarm. T'an, how fast can you get those controls repaired?”
”Great s.p.a.ce!” exclaimed T'an softly. ”Without seeing it, I'd say at least two days, Jonner. Those controls are complicated as h.e.l.l.”
They re-entered the s.h.i.+p. Qoqol was working at his diagrams, and Serj was looking over his shoulder. Jonner took a heat-gun quietly from the rack and pointed it at Serj.
”You'll get below, mister,” he commanded grimly. ”You'll be handcuffed to your bunk from here on out.”
”Sir?... I don't understand,” stammered Serj.
”Like h.e.l.l you don't. You cut that cable,” Jonner accused.
Serj started to shrug, but he dropped his eyes.
”They paid me,” he said in a low tone. ”They paid me a thousand solars.”
”What good would a thousand solars do you when you're dead, Serj ...
dead of suffocation and drifting forever in s.p.a.ce?”
Serj looked up in astonishment.
”Why, you can still reach Earth by radio, easy,” he said. ”It wouldn't take long for a rescue s.h.i.+p to reach us.”
”Chemical rockets have their limitations,” said Jonner coldly.
”And you don't realize what speed we've built up with steady acceleration. We'd head straight out of the system, and nothing could intercept us, if that tug had gotten too far before we noticed it was gone.”
He jabbed the white-faced doctor with the muzzle of the heat-gun.
”Get below,” he ordered. ”I'll turn you over to s.p.a.ce Control at Mars.”
When Serj had left the control deck, Jonner turned to the others. His face was grave.
”That tug picked up speed before I could shut off the engines, after the cable was cut,” he said. ”It's moving away from us slowly, and at a tangent. And solar gravity's acting on both bodies now. By the time we get those controls repaired, the drift may be such that we'll waste weeks maneuvering the tug back.”
”I could jet out to the tug in a s.p.a.cesuit, before it gets too far away,” said T'an thoughtfully. ”But that wouldn't do any good. There's no way of controlling the engines, at the tug. It has to be done by radio.”
”If we get out of this, remind me to recommend that atomic s.h.i.+ps always carry a spare cable,” said Jonner gloomily. ”If we had one, we could splice them and hold the s.h.i.+p to the tug until the controls are repaired.”