Suddenly Vance laughed.
“Okay, Chuck, you needed the lecture, and its true enough too. But who do you think reminded Jeff Foldingchair of the time he’d stowed away? Who do you think got a lunkhead like Red Echols appointed for guard duty? Officially, we resent your stowing away. But the whole crew meant to have you go, and you’re here. If we worried that much about giving up a little of our chance for survival, we’d never have volunteered for the trip.”
“But the Space Commission—” Chuck began.
Vance laughed again. “Chuck, there probably isn’t a man on Earth or the Moon who isn’t tickled pink that you’re with us—it makes a whale of a good story. As for your arrest, the terms are that you will be confined to this ship until we reach Mars! To pay your passage, you’ll help any one of us who needs help. Now come on to dinner.”
Chuck was still trying to find some way to thank Vance as they came into the tiny mess hall, off the galley. A general shout went up as he came in. He looked at them, grinning sheepishly. Lew Wong was beaming; the others seemed just as pleased.
Nat Rothman usually carried the worries of the world on his face. The pilot was a medium-built man of dark ‘complexion, with the only mustache in the crew. Tonight, the mustache stretched out over a smile broad enough to show his teeth, matching the grin of Dick Steele beside him. Even tiny Dr. Paul Sokolsky seemed completely happy. His red hair was a blaze around his head, without weight to hold it in place, and he kept trying to smooth it down. But he was the first to reach Chuck and began pumping his hand.
Then the voice of Ginger Parsons cut through the greetings.
“Chuck, you’re just what I need. Come back here and help me feed these space-happy bums!”
Chuck went back into the galley, where the cook and photographer of the expedition was busy. The man’s homely Irish face was a study of thought as he fussed over the heaters with the sealed cans of food. “What’s a cook for, anyway? If I tried to do any real cooking here, the liquids would jump out of the pans, and the solids would float around, burning us all to death. But you’re cook’s helper, anyhow. Pass it out.”
It was an odd meal. Liquids came in little plastic bags with nipples through which the contents could be sucked. All other food had to be kept in plates with lids on them, and speared quickly, before the cover was snapped down. Since anything not fastened down was sure to be a menace to them all, the tables were metal, with forks and knives magnetized to stay in place. Yet it was the happiest meal Chuck had eaten.
Vance stood up, holding onto a brace when he had finished his dinner. “All right, men, this was a celebration. From now on, we begin regular routine—and you’ll find it’s just that; shipboard life isn’t going to be exciting, at best. I’ve left the ship on automatic controls this time, to prove to you that it can be done.
“You’ll need that confidence in the
He grinned at Chuck. “Except tonight. I’ve noticed you limping around, so you’ll get Doc to bandage you, and go to bed. Orders.”
Chuck had smiled inwardly at the idea of anything being routine on the
The only change came from the occasional drop of liquid that got free somehow and collected into a little round ball in mid-air. Chasing after it and trying to trap it gave some exercise, but is wasn’t a very pleasant kind —particularly when the liquid was hot.
Even that came to an end when Vance decided to set the ship spinning so that they might be able to lead a more normal life. The spinning would throw them out against the hull like a weight whirled on the end of a string. Centrifugal force wasn’t the same as gravity, but the feeling. would be the same. It would make navigation harder, but there was little need for that until they reached Mars.
Chuck heard the wheels of the gyroscope start to spin, turning up to three thousand revolutions per minute. Here in space, every motion in one direction by any part of the ship was automatically compensated for by an opposite motion on the rest of the ship—Newton had stated it in his second law of motion: “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” It took 10,000 turns of the little six-pound wheel to turn the 60,000-pound ship once; and the whole ship began spinning, slowly at first, and then fester and faster.
When they seemed to weigh about ten pounds each, Vance let it stay, and set them to moving equipment to use the hull as their floor. The ship had been equipped for that. From then on, cooking went back to normal. In the hub, or central well of the ship, they were still weightless, but elsewhere they could walk if they were careful to take it easy.
Chuck found his niche. Half of his watch was spent in the hydroponic gardens, clipping the plants, tending them, and turning the clippings into a fresh batch of chemicals by means of the little chamber where bacteria reduced it all to liquid form. On board ship everything could be reused, over and over again; there was no loss, only change and that could be controlled. In theory they could have gone on forever, provided there was enough energy to maintain the processes.
The rest of his working time was spent in cleaning and in helping Ginger with the galley work. He was a combination cook, cleaning boy, and farmer.
Most of the communication was done on Vance’s shift, and he rarely saw the radar set. The few times when the alarm told of a signal coming through, it was of a purely technical nature, and not particularly interesting. Once he talked briefly to his father; he’d been sure that his family wouldn’t mind his running away, but it was nice to hear it confirmed. They were all” proud of him.
As they drew farther away from the moon, the radar took more and more energy to operate, and Vance discouraged using it. The atomic engine could operate for years to come, but the generators were subject to wear; all had been designed to weigh as little as possible, and there were only a minimum of replacements.
Most of the free time was spent in various games or in reading. Ginger had suggested a rough version of hockey down in the central shaft, where the absence of weight made it possible to leap from end to end if the initial push was Judged correctly. It provided exercise and amusement and soon became a regular part of their lives.
Finally, there was sleep. By the time Chuck went to bed, he was usually tired enough to drift off without trouble, and to sleep soundly through a full eight hours.
He was asleep, three weeks out from the Moon, when the first trouble came.
The gong suddenly cut through his dreams, wakening him so sharply that he fell from the hammock onto the “deck.” Without time to get back, he felt the rocket suddenly go on with the full thrust of the jets. His body slid down the length of the decks to crash into the steel plates. Only the shortness of the blast saved him from injury.
Then a call came from the control room. “All hands to control. Meteorites!”
CHAPTER 6
Meteorites!
Chuck found Dick ahead of him and the others at his heels as he plunged into the little control room where Vance and Lew were busy. There was hardly room for all, but they had no time to worry about that sort of inconvenience.
“Chuck, take radar!” Vance began barking out orders to the others, but Chuck didn’t hear the words. He was sliding into the seat Lew had given up, and his eyes were tracing the lines that now seemed to dart across the screen. With more credits in radar interception than Lew, he was the logical man for the job now.
Nat Rothman stood over him, working a small computing machine, while Vance handled the controls.
Each of the streaks on the screen represented a tiny object ahead—the size was indicated by the brightness. Chuck snapped his eye to the indicator, and saw that it
was set to show pea-sized objects as medium brightness. Another screen indicated distance. “Link ‘em,”
