Part 8 (1/2)

”But then I won't be able to come after you if anything goes wrong,”

he pointed out. ”No dice.”

”You're grasping, Stein,” I growled. ”At this stage I'm in charge around here. I'll take my chances on getting back.”

With the cabin light on I went as far as possible in dismounting both our tanks. After a couple rehearsals to make sure that at least one of us would always have a glove on a handhold, we both climbed out the hatch and I made the switch. Just as Sid suspected, we spilled a few drops. They vaporized, and again as we had feared, combined in what would have been an explosion in a confined s.p.a.ce. The soundless flash, dim but real, said we had released quite a little energy uniformly all around us. I never felt a thing except a faint warmth from infrared through my helmet.

Best of all, my jets worked. We both climbed back aboard _Nelly_, dogged the hatch, and started after Telstar Two.

The second bird was about fifteen thousand miles ahead of us. I slept most of the time, for after Sid gave us a jolt of added velocity, we had to settle down to about six hours of drifting. I woke up as the belt cut me when he fired the retros. We went through the radar and searchlight bit, and had the devil's own time finding our bird. But at last I got the flash of reflection and went to work.

I won't say the second job was any easier, except for the fact that I removed only one part to make room to do my bit with the insulation, and thus had very few screws to replace. My navigating in s.p.a.ce was a lot better, and I didn't use steering fuel as wastefully as the first time. Still, when we dogged down to chase after the final bird, the cabin gauge said that I had less than half my load of steering fuel left. Equally glum, _Nelly_ herself was even lower on steering fuel.

Neither Sid nor I had been as expert as we were supposed to be.

Nevertheless, we took off after the third bird, and found it glistening in bright sunlight without the help of the searchlight. I thought that was a good omen. But from there on nothing seemed to work right.

We had been aloft about thirty-six hours, and fatigue was setting in.

I was clumsy on the steering and had quite a time making contact.

The repair went according to Hoyle, but after I had put the spin back on the bird I found that I had no more steering fuel. I hung about ten or fifteen feet from Telstar Three and maybe eighty feet from _Nelly_, drifting slowly from both.

”Sid!”

”Roger, Mike.”

”This one will have to make it with the girdle on.”

”Can't you get it off?”

”I can't get back to it. Steering fuel gone.”

”Oh, no!”

”No sweat, Sid. It occludes a small share of the solar generators, but not enough to hurt anything.”

”That's not what I meant,” he said quietly into my ear. ”_Nelly's_ out of steering fuel, too. I can't pick you up!”

I gulped on that one.

”Canaveral Control!” I heard him call.

”Cut that out,” I said. ”They can't help. Shut up and let me think.”

But he didn't, and I couldn't. I had no fuel with which to move. Sid had only the retros and stern rockets, no good for swinging or turning. I was out of touching range of the bird, and couldn't shove against it to build up a little drift. Just as Sylvia said, it's not like swimming back to sh.o.r.e.

There was a lot of excited chatter in my earphones, in which I did not partic.i.p.ate. n.o.body made any sense, and Sid shut the thing down.

”Mike!”