More long days went by on the next of the three panels that had been injured; this was only partially hurt. The third one, which did the final job of taking the forces of all seven rocket tubes, calculating their differences, deciding how much that would tilt the ship, and making automatic corrections, would be the real headache.
They were still working on the second panel, making the final adjustments, when Dick Steele came up to announce that the gyroscopes were re-installed. Chuck took time off to join the others in looking over the repair.
It looked as good as the original. Dick had managed to melt down the broken sapphire bearing and re-shape it. Some of the supports were crudely welded, but that would not interfere with the operation. “How’ll it operate?” Vance asked. “Better than I hoped. I’ve had to handwind one of the motors, and rebalance it, but it should be good for longer than we’ll need it, coming and going. The only trouble is that you’ll have to run them a little more gently—they can’t start, stop, and reverse as smoothly. It won’t matter—unless you’re having trouble holding the ship steady when they should be compensating.”
Chuck frowned. He was tired, and the strain of the responsibility on his shoulders was beginning to tell on him. “Does that mean I’ve got to do perfect work on the control panels?”
“Just about,” Steele agreed. “If anything, you’ll have to do better than the men who installed the stuff in the first place.”
Chuck looked at Lew, who shrugged.
“I’ll do the best I can,” he promised. “But if I’ve got to make that good a job of it, you’ll have to turn off the master panel and cut off the control motors. I’ve got to find how much they interact and how they throw things off so that I’ll know how much to correct.”
Rothman started to protest, the lines of worry deepening on his face. But Steele cut him off. “The boy’s right,” he told Vance. “It’s the only way I can see. Good sound engineering practice.”
“But if we run into more meteorites…” Rothman pointed out. “We need some control.”
The pilot mulled it over while they moved back to the living quarters. Then he shrugged. “Okay, Chuck, I guess Vance and I will have to give in. If you have to do it, you have to do it. Go ahead.”
The captain agreed. Power was cut from the panel after Chuck and Lew had worked out a system that would take the smallest amount of time. The control room was already a mess of tools and wires, but Vance and Rothman filed in, somber about having the ship lifeless for even an hour. The pilot dropped into the radar seat and began working it unhappily, while Vance sat watching. He seemed unconcerned, and made no protest as the switches went down. He had inserted a small microphone under his helmet seals, and was relaying information on their progress down to the rest of the nervous crew. Chuck could imagine that his version of it was honest, but that it sounded much more reassuring than the captain really felt.
They were half-finished with their tests when the helmet radio snapped with Rothman’s voice. “Pips on the radar. Meteorites!”
“How much time?” Vance asked.
“A few minutes.”
It was too little; the panel could not be put. back into operation in less than half an hour. Chuck moved up to the radar controls, and readjusted them to give more precise information.
“I think we’ll miss them all,” he decided, but he couldn’t feel certain of it. Scanning such tiny particles at any distance beyond a few miles—a fraction of a second away—was difficult at best.
Vance looked, and went back to his seat, seeming unconcerned. “It must be the front of the swarm the observatory first spotted—they had to guess at its size from the few big ones they could photograph. I’ve been expecting them, but I thought they’d be farther on. Well, we’ll soon know.”
Chuck again tried to make a compensation for the spin of the ship that would give finer accuracy, but he could do little to improve his first setting. Lew watched for a second, and then turned back to testing the panels they were working on. Chuck offered to help, but Vance motioned him back. “I know enough for this. Chuck. Stick to the screens. At least, you can tell us in time to say a short prayer before we get it, maybe.”
The pips on the screen were brighter now. Rothman was busily figuring. The worry was back on his face, but his hands were steady in the gloves he wore—which was more than Chuck could say for his own. He was honestly afraid, and didn’t care who knew it. Rothman and Vance seemed incapable of feeling fear.
“Well miss them, I think,” the pilot announced. “It looks as if well just clear them. Another minute will tell”
Something sang against the hull of the ship as he finished. Chuck puzzled over that; no sound could carry without air. Then he realized the crew below must have tuned in their suit-radios; he was hearing the sounds they heard.
It was like the splintering of ice in a metal bucket. Vance grunted. ‘Turn it up. Ginger,” he ordered. An intake of surprised breath answered, and the sound increased in volume.
“Just dust—too small to pierce the hull, I guess,” Vance
decided.
It disappeared then. They listened tensely for it, but there was no return. It might have been the microscopic fragments of some meteorite which had collided with something and was still following the old orbit. But whatever it was, it was gone.
The pips on the screen brightened still more, but they were out of the center now. Then they moved away and left no trail. Rothman leaned back, sighing. “They passed behind us. If we don’t find more of them, we’re okay. What’s the range on this screen. Chuck? About twenty-five hundred miles?”
It was close enough, and Chuck nodded. “Unless you hit a big one with the beam.”
“A couple of minutes of our flight I’ll hold this, Chuck. Go on back to your work. If I see a pip, I’ll yell.”
Chuck and Lew worked on, measuring and comparing with the notes on the specifications. It was slow, tedious work. They were on the last few minutes of it when a surprised grunt came from Rothman.
“What’s up, Nat?” Vance asked quietly.
“I don’t know—I’m getting something like television snow on this thing. I don’t know whether I’m seeing meteorites or not.”
Chuck looked down at the soldering gun Lew was using, and grinned. He hit it with his foot and saw the switch snap back from where it had stuck. ‘That cure it?”
Rothman grinned back suddenly, and nodded. “Down with theory. Miles. Give me a kid whose father brought him up on engineering. No meteorites.”
“And no more reason to keep this off,” Lew reported. “We’re finished.”
With a relieved sigh, Vance threw the switches back to the fully on position. Now, if they had to, the ship could try dodging the impact of a meteorite again.
Rothman picked up the mass of readings they had, as Chuck stared at them. He reached for his calculator, and motioned the two boys to follow him down to the crew quarters, where they could work more comfortably. This was theoretical material, and here Lew and Rothman together could do more in a few minutes than Chuck would have been able to accomplish in hours.
Chuck realized that the meteorite collision had done some good. They were all beginning to work together as a team, each doing what he could do best without thinking about it; and each now knew what he should leave to someone else.
That was something no theoretical preparation could give them. He began to feel more optimistic than he had for weeks. Somehow, this was a crew that would get itself out of almost any trouble.
He listened to Rothman and Lew working over the books on theory and the results they had obtained. Then he went to his hammock to sleep. It would have seemed like shirking to him before he stowed away; now he knew that it was just good sense to get ready for the work that must come while others who could do this work better carried on.
As he was falling asleep, he suddenly realized that his father had spent years trying to teach him the lesson be had learned here so quickly. He smiled a little—and then scowled to himself in the darkness. It was a fine time to get homesick!
