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FAR FROM HOME
BY J. A. TAYLOR
Illustrated by Emsh
_"Far" is strictly a relative term. Half a world away from home is, sometimes, no distance at all!_
Someone must have talked over the fence because the newshounds wereclamoring on the trail within an hour after it happened.
The harassed Controller had lived in an aura of "Restricteds,""Classifieds" and "Top Secrets" for so long it had become a mentalconditioning and automatically hedged over information that had beenpublic property for years via the popular technical mags; but in timethey pried from him an admittance that the Station Service Lift rocketA. J. "Able Jake" Four had indeed failed to rendezvous with SpaceStation One, due at 9:16 Greenwich that morning.
The initial take-off and ascent had gone to flight plan and the pilot,in the routine check-back after entering free flight had reported nomotor or control faults. At this point, unfortunately, a fault in thetracking radar transmitter had resulted in it losing contact with thetarget. The Controller did not, however, mention the defection of thehungover operator in fouling up the signal to the standby unit, or theconsequent general confusion in the tracking network with no contact atall thereafter, and fervently hoped that gentlemen of the press were nottoo familiar with the organization of the tracking system.
At least one of the more shrewd looking reporters appeared as though hewere mentally baiting a large trap so the Controller, throwing cautionto the winds, plunged headlong into a violent refutal of variouserroneous reports already common in the streets.
Able Jake did not carry explosives or highly corrosive chemicals, onlysome Waste Disposal cylinders, dry foodstuffs and sundry StationHousehold supplies.
Furthermore there was no truth in the oft-revived rumors of weaknessesin the so-called "spine-and-rib" construction of the Baur and HammondType Three vessel under acceleration strain. The type had beendiscontinued solely because the rather complicated structure raisedcertain stowage difficulties in service with overlong turnabout timesresulting.
There may have been a collision with a meteor he conceded, but, it wasthought, highly unlikely. And now, the urgent business of the searchcalled, the Controller escaped, perspiring gently.
Able Jake was sighted a few minutes later but it was another three hoursbefore a service ship could be readied and got away without load toallow it as much operating margin as possible. Getting a man aboard wasyet another matter. At this stage of space travel no maneuver of thisnature had ever been accomplished outside of theory. Fuel-thrust-massratios were still a thing of pretty close reckoning, and the servicelift ships were simply not built for it.
The ship was in an elliptical orbit and a full degree off its normalcourse. A large part of the control room was demolished and there was alengthy split in the hull. There was no sign of the pilot and some ofthe cargo was missing also. The investigating crew assumed the obviousand gave it as their opinion that the pilot had been literallydisintegrated by the intense heat of the collision.
The larger part of the world's population made it a point to listen inon the first space burial service in history over the absent remains ofJohnny Melland.
* * * * *
Such a small thing to cause such a fury. A mere twenty Earth pounds ofan indifferent grade of rock and a little iron, an irregular, ungracefullump, spawned somewhere a billion years before as a star died. But itstill had most of the awesome velocity and inertia of its birth.
Able Jake, with the controlling influence of the jets cut, had yawedslightly and was now traveling crabwise. The meteor on its own course, atrifle oblique to that of the ship, struck almost directly the slenderspring steel spine, the frightful energy of the impact transmuted on theinstant into a heat that vaporized several feet of the nose and spinebefore the dying shock caused an anguished flexing of the ship'sbackbone; thrust violently outward along the radial members and soagainst the ribs and hull sheathing on that side. Able Jake's hull splitopen like a pea pod for fully half its length and several items of itscargo burst from their lashings, erupted from the wound.
Johnny was not inboard at the time, but floating, spacesuited alongside,freeing a fouled lead to the radar bowl, swearing occasionally butwithout any real passion at the stupidity of the unknown maintenance manwho failed to secure it properly. For some odd reason he had never quitelost the thrill of his first trip "outside," and, donning pressure suitwith the speed of long practice, sneaked as many "inspections" aspossible, with or without due cause.
The second's fury that reduced the third stage of a $5,000,000 rocket tojunk was evident to him only as a brilliant blue-white flash, ahammer-like shock through the antennae support that left his wrist andforearm numb. Then a violent wrench as a long cylinder, expelled fromthe split hull, caught the loop of his life line and dragged him in tillhe clashed hard against it, the suddenly increased tension or a sharpedge parting the line close to the anchored end. He clawed blindly for ahold, found something he could not at that moment identify and hung on.
For a short time his vision seemed dulled and that part of his mind,trained to the quick analysis of sudden situations groped but feeblythrough a haze of shock to understand what had happened. Orientinghimself he found he was gripping a brace of the open-mounted motor onone of the Waste Disposal Cylinders. About him he could see other odditems of the cargo, some clustering fairly closely, others justperceptibly drifting farther away. To one side, or "downwards" the Earthrolling vastly, pole over pole, and with her own natural rotationgiving an odd illusion of slipping sideways from under him.
Only a sudden sun glint on the stubby swept-back wings showed him whereAble Jake was. Far away--too far, spinning slowly end over end. Hissideways expulsion from the ship then had been enough to give him andhis companion debris a divergent course.
Spacemen accept without question the fact of a ship or a station alwaysat hand with a safety man on watch at all times over those outside and a"bug" within signaling distance constantly. They do not conceive of anyother state of affairs.
Now Johnny had to face the fact that he was in such a position--entirelyand utterly alone, except for the useless flotsam that came with him. Hemight have flung himself into a mad chase after the ship on his suitjets except that the thought of leaving his little island, cold comfortthough it was, to plunge into those totally empty depths was suddenlyhorrible.
The tide of panic rose within him. He knew the sickening bodily revoltof blind unreasoning terror--the terror of the lost, the terror ofcertain untimely death, but mostly of death so dreadfully alone.
He might have gone insane. In the face of the insoluble problem his mindmight have retreated into a shadow world of its own, perhaps to prattlehappily the last few hours away. But there was something else there. Thepre-flight school psychiatrist had recognized it, Johnny himselfprobably wouldn't have and it wasn't their policy to tell him. It savedhim. The labored heart pounding and the long shuddering gasps slowed intime and with the easing of his physical distress he found enough heartto muster a wry little smile at the thought that of the castaways ofhistory he at least stood fair to be named the most unique.
* * * * *
And after a while, shaking himself mentally, a little ashamed of histemporary fall from grace, he followed the example of the moreintelligent of his predecessors and settled down to itemize his assets,analyze his position and conjecture the chances of survival.
Item: He was encased in a Denby Bros. spacesuit, Mark III, open spaceusage, meant for no gravity use. Therefore it had no legs as such, thelower half being a rigid cylinder allowing considerable movement with
inand having a swivel mounted rocket motor at its base controlled by toepedals inside.
The upper half, semiflexible with jointed arms ending in gloves fromwhich by contorting the shoulders the hands could be withdrawn into thesleeves when not in use.
A metal and tinted plastic helmet with earphones, mike and chin switch.An oxy air-conditioning and reprocessing unit with its spare pure oxygentank; on this he could possibly depend for twelve hours given no undueexertion and with the most rigid economy all the time.
The power pack for suit operation and radio had a safety margin of onehour over the maximum air supply, if the radio wasn't used. At this timeJohnny couldn't see much use for it.
Item: One Waste Disposal Cylinder, expendable, complete with motor andfull fuel tanks, packed, according to his loading manifest with sundrysupplies to avoid dead stowage space. Seldom used, since most stationwaste was ferried down in the otherwise empty service ships,