'You did it, not me.' Hanako cut back in the voice circuit. 'Okay, there- number four.'
Matt wanted to chase back to his room, find Tex, and do some boasting. But there were seven more to go. Some did well, some had to be fished out of difficulty.
The last man outdid himself. He failed to cut off his power in spite of Hanako's shouts for him to do so. He moved away from the ship in a wide curve and commenced to spin, while the sergeant whipped at the safety line to try to stop the spin and head him back. At the end of a long fifty seconds his power gave out; he was nearly a thousand feet away and still receding rapidly.
The sergeant played him like a fisherman fighting a barracuda, then brought him in very, very slowly, for there was no way to check whatever speed the tension on the line placed on him.
When at last he was in, clicked down, and anchored by static line, Hanako sighed. 'Whew!' he said. 'I thought I was going to have to go get him.' He went to the cadet and touched helmets, radio off.
The cadet did not shut off his instrument. 'I don't know,' they heard him reply. 'The switch didn't go bad-I just couldn't seem to move a muscle. I could hear you shouting but I couldn't move.'
Matt went back to the airlock with the group, feeling considerably sobered. He suspected that there would be a vacant place at supper. It was the Commandant's policy to get a cadet who was to be dropped away from the ship without delay. Matt did not question the practice, but it jarred him when he saw it happening-it brought the cold breath of disaster en his own neck.
But he cheered up as soon as he was dismissed. Once he was out of his suit and had inspected it and stowed it as the rules required, he zipped to his room, bouncing his turns in a fashion not approved for in-ship progress.
He banged on the door of Tex's cubicle. 'Hey, Tex! Wake up! I've got news for you.'
No answer-he opened the door, but Tex was not there. Nor, as it happened, were Pete or Oscar. Disconsolately he went into his own sanctum and picked out a study spool.
Nearly two hours later Tex came bouncing in as Matt was getting ready for lunch and shouted, 'Hey! Matt! Mitt me, big boy-shake hands with a spaceman!'
'Huh?'
'I just passed 'basic space suit'-sergeant said it was the best first test he had ever seen.'
'He did? Oh-'
'He sure did. Oh boy-Terra Station, here I come!'
VIII TERRA STATION
'LIBERTY PARTY-man the scooter!'
Matt zipped up the front of his space suit and hurriedly ran through the routine check. Oscar and Tex urged him along, as the liberty party was already filing through the door of the lock. The cadet officer-of-the-watch checked Matt in and sealed the door of the lock behind him.
The lock was a long corridor, sealed at each end, leading to a hangar pocket in the side of the Randolph in which the scooter rockets were stowed. The pressure died away and the far end of the lock opened; Matt pulled himself along, last in line, and found the scooter loaded. He could not find a place; the passenger racks were filled with space-suited cadets, busy strapping down.
The cadet pilot beckoned to him. Matt picked his way forward and touched helmets. 'Mister,' said the oldster, 'can you read instruments?'
Guessing that he referred only to the simple instrument panel of a scooter, Matt answered, 'Yes, sir.'
'Then get in the co-pilot's chair. What's your mass?'
'Two eighty-seven, sir,' Matt answered, giving the combined mass, in pounds, of himself and his suit with all its equipment. Matt strapped down, then looked around, trying to locate Tex and Oscar. He was feeling very important, even though a scooter requires a co-pilot about as much as a hog needs a spare tail.
The oldster entered Mart's mass on his center-of-gravity and moment-of- inertia chart, stared at it thoughtfully and said to Matt, 'Tell Gee-three to swap places with Bee-two.'
Matt switched on his walky-talky and gave the order. There was a scramble while a heavy-set youngster changed seats } with a smaller cadet. The pilot gave a high sign to the cadet manning the hangar pocket; the scooter and its launching cradle swung out of the pocket, pushed by power- driven lazy tongs.
A scooter is a passenger rocket reduced to its simplest terms and has been described as a hat rack with an outboard motor. It operates only in empty space and does not have to be streamlined.
The rocket motor is unenclosed. Around it is a tier of light metal supports, the passenger rack. There is no 'ship' in the sense of a hull, airtight compartments, etc. The passengers just belt themselves to the rack and let the rocket motor scoot them along.
When the scooter was clear of the ship the cadet in the hangar pocket turned the launching cradle, by power, until the scooter pointed at Terra Station. The pilot slapped the keys in front of him; the scooter took off.
The cadet pilot watched his radarscope. When the distance to the Station was closing at eighty-eight feet per second he cut his jet. 'Latch on to the Station,' he told Matt.
Matt plugged in and called the station. 'Scooter number three, Randolph- scheduled trip. Arriving nine minutes, plus or minus,' Matt sent, and congratulated himself on having studied the spool on small-craft procedures.
'Roger,' a feminine voice answered, then added, 'Use out-orbit contact platform Bee-for-Busy.'
'Bee-for-Busy,' acknowledged Matt. 'Traffic?'
'None out-orbit. Winged Victory in-orbit, warping in.' J
Matt reported to his pilot. 'No traffic,' repeated the oldster. 'Mister, I'm going to catch forty winks. Wake me when we've closed to a mile and a half.'
'Aye aye, sir.'
'Think you could bring her in?'
Matt gulped. 'I’ll try, sir.'
'Figure it out while I'm asleep.' The cadet promptly closed his eyes, floating as comfortably in free fall as if he had been in his own cubicle. Matt concentrated on the instrument dials.
Seven minutes later he shook the oldster, who opened his eyes and said, 'What's your flight plan, Mister?'
'Well, uh-if we keep going as is, well just slide past on the out-orbit side. I don't think I'd change it at all. When we close to four thousand feet I'd blast until our relative speed is down to about ten foot-seconds, then forget the radar and brake by eye as we pass along the side.'
'You've been studying too hard.'
'Is that wrong?' Matt asked anxiously.
'Nope. Go ahead. Do it.' The oldster bent over the tracking 'scope to assure himself that the scooter would miss the Station. Matt watched the closing range, while excitement built up inside him. Once he glanced ahead at 'the shining cylindrical bulk of the Station, but looked back quickly. A few seconds later he punched his firing key and a plume of flame shot out in front of them.
A scooter has jets at both ends, served by the same interconnected tanks, fuel pumps and piping. Scooters are conned 'by the seat of your pants' rather than by complex mathematics. As such they are invaluable in letting student pilots get the feel of rocket ships.
As the distance decreased Matt felt for the first time the old nightmare of rocket pilots: is the calculated maneuver enough to avoid a crash? He felt this, even though he knew his course would slide him past the corner of the mammoth structure. It was a relief to release the firing key.
The oldster said, 'Can you spot Bee-for-Busy when you see it?'
Matt shook his head. 'No, sir. This is my first trip to Terra Station.'
'It is? And I let you pilot! Well, there it is, ahead-third platform down. Better start braking.'
'Aye aye, sir.' The scooter was passing along the side of the Station and about a hundred yards out, at the speed of a brisk walk. Matt let Bee-for-Busy approach for a few moments more, then gave a short, experimental blast. It did not seem to slow them much; he gave a somewhat longer blast.
A few minutes later he had the scooter almost dead in space and practically abreast their contact point. He looked inquiringly at the pilot. 'I've seen worse,' the oldster grunted. 'Tell them to bring us in.'
'Randolph number three-ready for contact,' Matt reported, via radio.
'We see you,' the girl's voice answered. 'Stand by for a line.'
A line, shot by a gun, came sailing out in perfectly flat trajectory and passed through a metal loop sticking out
