‘Two minutes,’ said the voice.
Ticker looked at the missile again. It was swinging a little more now, enough to give glimpses of length, instead of a flat diagram of circles. He watched it curiously. There was no doubt that the roving action was increasing. Correction and re-correction were stronger and more frequent.
‘What’s happening to the bastard?’ a voice asked. ‘Kind of losing its touch, isn’t it?’
They stared at it in horrid fascination, watching the yawing motion grow wider while the correcting jets spat more fiercely and rapidly. Soon it was swinging so much that they were getting broadside views of it - a fat, droplet-shaped body, buttressed by three smaller droplet shapes which housed its driving tubes. The small correcting tubes, so busily employed at this moment, branched laterally in radial clumps from the main-tube nacelles. Its method of working was obvious. Once the homing device had found a line on the target the main tubes would fire to give directional impetus. Then, either to keep down to manoeuvrable speed, or simply to economize, they would cut out, leaving it to coast easily to the target while the homer kept it on course by correcting touches from the side tubes. Less obvious was what had got into it now, and was causing it to bear down on them in a wildly drunken wobble.
‘Why the devil should it go nuts and start “hunting” at this stage?’ muttered the leader of the working party.
‘That’s it,’ said the Commander from the hulk, with a sudden hopeful note in his voice. ‘It has gone nuts; all bewitched and bewildered. It’s the masses, don’t you see? The mass of the hulk is about the same as that of the assembly and parts now. The thing is approaching on a line where they are both equidistant. Its computers are foozled: they can’t decide which to go for. It would be bloody funny if it weren’t serious. If it can’t decide in another few seconds at that speed it’ll overshoot any possibility of correcting in time.’
They kept watching the thing tensely. It had, in fact, already lost a little speed, for it was now yawing so widely that the steering tubes’ attempts to correct the swing were having some braking effect. For a half minute there was silence. Then someone breathed out, noisily.
‘He’s right, by God! It is going to miss,’ he said.
Other held breaths were released, and the earphones sounded a huge, composite sigh of relief. It was no longer possible to doubt that the missile would pass right between the hulk and the assembly.
In a final desperate effort to steady up, the port tubes fired a salvo that spun it right round on its own axis as it hurtled along.
‘Bloody thing’s started waltzing now,’ observed a voice.
Still wobbling wildly it careered on, in a flaring, soundless rush. Closer it reeled, and closer, until it was whirling madly past, between them and the hulk.
Ticker did not see what happened next. There was a sudden violent shock which banged his head against the inside of his helmet, and turned everything into dancing lights. For a few seconds he was dazed. Then it came to him that he was no longer holding on to the framework of the assembly. He groped, and found nothing. With an effort, he opened his eyes and forced them into focus. The first thing they showed him was the hulk and the half-built space-station dwindling rapidly in the distance.
Ticker kicked wildly, and managed to turn himself round, but it took him several moments to grasp what had happened. He found that he was floating in space in company with a collection of minor parts of the assembly and two other space-suited men, while, close by, the missile, now encumbered with a tangle of lines, was still firing its steering tubes while it cavorted and spun in an imbecilic fashion. By degrees he perceived that the missile had in its passage managed to entangle itself in a dozen or more tethers and safety-lines, and torn them away, together with whatever happened to be attached to them.
He closed his eyes for a moment. His head throbbed. He fancied that it was bleeding on the right side. He hoped the cut was small; if there was much blood it might float around loose in his helmet and get into his eyes. Suddenly the Commander’s voice in the phone said:
‘Quiet everyone.’ It paused, and went on: ‘Hullo, hullo there! Calling you three with the missile. Are you all right? Are you all right?’
Ticker ran his tongue over his lips, and swallowed.
‘Hullo, Skipper. Ticker here. I’m all right, Skip.’
‘You don’t sound so all right, Ticker.’
‘Bit muzzy. Knocked my head on my helmet. Better in a minute.’
‘What about the other two?’ A groggy voice broke in:
‘Nobby here, Skipper. I’m all right, too - I think. Been sick as a dog - not funny at all. Don’t know about the other. Who is it?’
‘Must be Dobbin. Hullo there, Dobbin! Are you all right?’
There was no reply.
‘It was a hell of a jerk, Skipper,’ said the groggy voice.
‘How’s your air?’
Ticker looked at the dials.
‘Normal supply, and reserve intact,’ he said.
‘My reserve isn’t registering. Fractured, maybe, but I’ve got nearly four hours,’ said Nobby.
‘Better cut loose, and make your way back by hand tubes,’ said the Commander. ‘You right away, Nobby. Ticker, you’ve got more air. Can you reach Dobbin? If you can, link him on to you, and bring him back with you. Think you can?’
‘Shouldn’t be difficult, I think.’
‘Look, Skip - ‘ Nobby began.
‘That’s an order, Nobby,’ the Commander told him briefly.
Kicking himself over, Ticker was able to see one of the space-suited figures fumbling at its belt. Presently the safety-line floated free, though the figure still kept along in company. It drew the pistol-like hand-tube from the holster, and held it in front with both hands, kicking a little as it manoeuvred to get the hulk dead behind it in the tube’s mirror-sights. Then the tube flared, and the figure holding it dropped away, slowly at first, then with increasing speed. ‘Be seeing you, Ticker,’ said its voice. ‘Bacon and eggs?’
‘Done both sides, mind,’ Ticker told him.
He drew his own tube. When he had the second space-suited figure in the mirror, he gave the briefest possible touch on the trigger to set himself drifting towards it. A few moments later he reported:
‘I’m afraid old Dobbin’s through, Skip. It was quick, though. Bloody great rip in the left leg of his suit. Damn bad luck. Shall I bring him back?’
The Commander hesitated a moment.
‘No, Ticker,’ he decided. ‘It’d just mean an additional hazard for you. Dobbin wouldn’t want that. No, cast off his line and let him go, poor chap. Take his reserve air bottle, though - and his tube, too. It’ll help you to catch up on Nobby.’
There was a brief silence, then:
‘That’s funny,’ Ticker murmured.
‘What’s funny?’ demanded the Commander.
‘Just a minute, Skip.’
‘What is it, Ticker?’
‘The lines have tightened, Skipper. A minute ago, we and the odd bits were all in a clump, with the missile acting daft alongside. Now it’s steadied up, seems to be pulling away. Hell, this is confusing - you aren’t where you ought to be, either. The - oh, I get it. The thing’s turning; swinging us round after it....I’m letting old Dobbin go now...’
There was a pause. ‘He’s drifting off on a different line, away from me. The thing must be making a wide turn, I think. Difficult to tell just what it is doing; it’s giving lots of little bursts as it steadies up. I don’t care much for this, Skipper. All the towed bits, including me, have swung together in a jumble.’
‘Better cast off now, and shove yourself clear.’
‘Just a minute, Skip. I want to see - ‘ His voice tailed away. ‘Yes, yes, she is. She’s pulling, pulling steadily round....‘
Ticker was hanging out at the end of his life-line, watching the constellations wheel slowly, and twisting slowly himself, which made it the more confusing.
The random element introdu
ced into the missile by the conflict of purpose had been sorted out. It was coordinated again, and its change of direction was steady, smooth, and purposeful. It was, in fact, back on the job. Its radar had searched for, and found, the target it had missed in its temporary derangement, and was bringing it round to bear once more. Somewhere inside the fat metal droplet there were relays ready to go in once it was steady in the aim; a brief burst on the main tubes would send it back to the attack....
‘My God!’ exclaimed Ticker, and began to haul himself hand over hand along his safety-line, shoving aside the trailing flotsam of assembly items as he went, and making for the missile itself.
‘What’s that about? Haven’t you cast off yet?’ inquired the Commander.
Ticker did not reply. He had come close to the missile, swung a little out from it by the continuing turn, but able to reach it. Presently he could touch it, and brought round a leg to kick himself clear of the steering-tubes. He pulled himself forward on the length of line remaining, and caught hold of the member which joined one of the nacelles to the main body. It was round all three of these members that the lines had tangled as the missile had swept past the assembly, and he tied his safety-line short to a loop in the tangle that looked as if it would hold.
‘What the devil are you doing, Ticker?’ asked the Commander.
‘I’m aboard the missile, Skipper,’ Ticker told him.
‘For heaven’s sake! - you mean you’re on the damned thing? Look, I told you to cast off. Do I have to make it an order?’
‘I hope you won’t, Skipper, because I rather think that if you did, and if I obeyed it, I’d very likely have nowhere to go.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Well, it looks to me as if this thing is in the process of getting round to have another go at you.’
‘Is it, by hell! You sure of that, Ticker?’
‘ ‘Fraid so. Don’t see what else it can be doing. It’s certainly making a steady arc, and if that’s its game, this seems to be as good a place as any.’
‘Wouldn’t be my choice. What do you mean?’
‘Well, if I’d stayed where I was I’d be fried when it fires its main tubes. And if I cast off now and it does go for you, I stand to die slowly in a space-suit. Not nice, at all. Whereas this way I get a free ride home. If it misses you, I can roll off: if it doesn’t, well, it’ll be the same for all of us....‘
‘That’s a lot more logical than agreeable. What’s it doing now?’
‘Still coming round. You lie to port as we go. About twenty degrees more to swing yet. You should be able to observe easily.’
‘We’ve got you on the radar, all right, but we can’t bring the glass to bear so far to sunward.’
‘I see. Try to keep you informed,’ said Ticker.
He worked forward on the metal body. There was enough iron in it to give some traction for his magnetic soles. ‘Turn still gradual, but steady,’ he reported. ‘This thing has a number of knobs and protuberances and so on round the nose,’ he added. ‘Five major and several minor. God knows what they are. One or more must be radar.’
‘With limited range, obviously,’ said the Commander. ‘Must be, or it would go off chasing the moon, or the Earth, instead of us. That looks as if they must know our distance and the plane of our orbit pretty accurately, damn them. Given that, it wouldn’t be too difficult to make it sure to find us sooner or later. If you can sort out which is the radar, it might be helpful to have a good bash at it.’
‘Trouble is they aren’t like anything I’ve ever seen,’ complained Ticker. ‘It’d be just too bad if the one I bashed turned out to be a fuse.’
‘Take your time, and make sure. How’s she bearing now?’
‘Nearly on. Three or four degrees more.’
He slid back a bit to a position where he could brace himself on a nacelle member. The intermittent vibration from the starboard tubes ceased, and a new tremor ran through the missile as the port tubes fired to check her.
‘She’s round now,’ he told the Commander. ‘Lined up on you, and steadying.’
He waited tensely, gripping with arms and knees as best he could. The main tubes spurted briefly. He felt the missile surge forward. There was a jerk as the lines to the flotsam tightened, and checked it. The tubes fired again. The missile and its tow jerked to and fro on their loose coupling, but only one of the lines parted, to let a girder section spin off into space on its own. The rest joggled, and the lines looped about until presently the whole conglomeration was in motion on the new line, headed now for the distant hulk, but at a speed somewhat below that of the missile’s former attack.
‘On our way now, Skip,’ Ticker reported. ‘I’ll get forward again, and try to see about that radar.’
On the nose once more, he tried shielding the protuberances in turn with his gloved hands. There was no apparent effect; certainly no tendency to deviate from the course. He slackened off the life-line a little, and hung over the front to shield as many as possible at once with his body, also without noticeable result. Again he examined the projections. One of them looked as if it might be a small solar-energy cell, but the rest were unidentifiable. He was sure only that some of them must be relaying information to the controls. He sat back, astride the nose of the missile, and feeling the need of a cigarette as he had seldom felt it before.
‘Got me beat,’ he admitted. ‘I just don’t know, Skip. Almost any of them might be any damned thing.’
He turned his attention to the spangled blackness about him. The hulk and the assembly, lying dead ahead, were shining more brightly than anything but the sun itself.
‘One thing, Skipper,’ he said. ‘It won’t be like the other try. The turn’s brought it round so that you and the assembly are almost in line from here.’
‘There must be some way of disabling or disarming the brute. Don’t any of those projections unscrew?’
‘A couple of them look as if they ought to, but I’ve no spanners, and I lost the grips when I was snatched off.’
Moving forward again, he braced himself as well as he could, and tried to unscrew a graspable portion with his gloved hands. It was a waste of effort. He gave up, and gazed ahead while he recovered his breath. The missile was steady on its course, with barely a tremor of correction to be felt. Distance was difficult to judge, but he guessed that he could not be much more than twenty miles from the hulk. Not many minutes...
Ticker became aware of sweat forming on his forehead, and stinging in the corners of his eyes. He shook his head, and worked his eyebrows to try to get rid of the drops. Presently he slithered clumsily back to the member connecting the port nacelle. He sat on it, lashing himself there as best he could with the life-line. He pressed back on the main body, bracing his feet against the nacelle itself. He drew the two hand-tubes, his own and Dobbin’s. He checked their power settings, and then held them on either side of him, their wide mouths pointing outwards, their butts firmly grounded against the metal casing at his back. Like that, he waited.
‘Ticker. Bale out now,’ said the Commander.
‘I told you, Skip. I’m not for dying slowly in a space-suit.’ The hulk, and the assembly beyond it, seemed to be rushing towards him now. His spine was prickling, partly with sweat, partly with the knowledge of the explosive just behind it. He found himself becoming more conscious of it, crawlingly aware of the vast tearing power held in a thin shell, waiting for the impact that would release it. The sweat ran out of every pore, soaking his clothes.
He sat with his head turned to the right, watching the hulk grow bigger and nearer from eyes that stung with salt. ‘Not too soon,’ he told himself. ‘It mustn’t be too soon.’ But it mustn’t be too late, either. He was aware of the Commander’s voice in the phone again, but he took no notice of it. Would one mile distance do? - Or would that not be soon enough? No, it should give him just time enough at the rate he was going. He would make it one mile as near as he could judge. ... He went on watching, both hands c
lenched on the tube-grips...
Must be about a couple of miles now....
He set his teeth, and pulled both triggers right back for a moment. ... The hulk seemed to slide to the left as the missile kicked over more sharply than he had expected. The thing keeled for a moment, like a dancer caught off balance. Then the steering-tubes fired a correcting blast. The nose swung back on to the target, and then beyond it. The tubes on the near-side fired to correct the overswing: at the same moment Ticker pulled both triggers back, and held them there. With the combined blast reinforcing her new back-swing, the missile leapt sideways and swung broadside to her course at the same time. The constellations whirled round Ticker’s head. He looked wildly round for the hulk, and found it back over his left shoulder - and not much more than half a mile away. He prayed that there was not time enough for a correction....
An air missile, with air to grip, and fins to grip it, might have managed a quick correction; but in space, where every movement is a delicate matter of thrust and counter-thrust, time too is a highly important factor: oscillation cannot be killed at a stroke, lost equilibrium cannot be regained in a moment...
The angle of diversion needed to get back on course grew more acute every second. Ticker knew suddenly that the thing could not do it. Only the main drive could have exerted enough force to jump it back in time to hit - and experience showed that the main drive liked to be steady in the aim before it fired.
But the side-tubes tried. Ticker braced himself where he sat while the heavens reeled as the missile spun. Then the hulk rushed past in a blur, fifty yards away...
‘Done it, by God! Bloody good show, Ticker!’ said a voice.
‘Quiet there!’ snapped the Commander. ‘Ticker, that was magnificent. Now come off it. Bale out quick.’
Ticker, still held by his line, relaxed, feeling all in. The missile, still swinging from side to side, scudded on with him into space.