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Far from Home
Taylor, J.A.
Published:
1955
Type(s):
Short Fiction, Science Fiction
Source:
http://gutenberg.org
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"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
were clamoring 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 mental condi-
tioning and automatically hedged over information that had been public
property for years via the popular technical mags; but in time they pried
from him an admittance that the Station Service Lift rocket A. J. "Able
Jake" Four had indeed failed to rendezvous with Space Station 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 no motor or
control faults. At this point, unfortunately, a fault in the tracking radar
transmitter had resulted in it losing contact with the target. The Control-
ler did not, however, mention the defection of the hungover operator in
fouling up the signal to the standby unit, or the consequent general con-
fusion in the tracking network with no contact at all thereafter, and fer-
vently hoped that gentlemen of the press were not too familiar with the
organization of the tracking system.
At least one of the more shrewd looking reporters appeared as though
he were mentally baiting a large trap so the Controller, throwing caution
to the winds, plunged headlong into a violent refutal of various erro-
neous reports already common in the streets.
Able Jake did not carry explosives or highly corrosive chemicals, only
some
Waste
Disposal
cylinders,
dry
foodstuffs
and
sundry
Station
Household supplies.
Furthermore there was no truth in the oft-revived rumors of weak-
nesses in the so-called "spine-and-rib" construction of the Baur and Ham-
mond Type Three vessel under acceleration strain. The type had been
discontinued solely because the rather complicated structure raised cer-
tain
stowage
difficulties
in
service
with
overlong
turnabout
times
resulting.
There may have been a collision with a meteor he conceded, but, it
was thought, highly unlikely. And now, the urgent business of the
search called, the Controller escaped, perspiring gently.
Able Jake was sighted a few minutes later but it was another three
hours before a service ship could be readied and got away without load
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to allow it as much operating margin as possible. Getting a man aboard
was yet another matter. At this stage of space travel no maneuver of this
nature had ever been accomplished outside of theory. Fuel-thrust-mass
ratios were still a thing of pretty close reckoning, and the service lift
ships were simply not built for it.
The ship was in an elliptical orbit and a full degree off its normal
course. A large part of the control room was demolished and there was a
lengthy split in the hull. There was no sign of the pilot and some of the
cargo was missing also. The investigating crew assumed the obvious and
gave it as their opinion that the pilot had been literally disintegrated by
the intense heat of the collision.
The larger part of the world's population made it a point to listen in on
the first space burial service in history over the absent remains of Johnny
Melland.
Such a small thing to cause such a fury. A mere twenty Earth pounds
of an indifferent grade of rock and a little iron, an irregular, ungraceful
lump, spawned somewhere a billion years before as a star died. But it
still had most of the awesome velocity and inertia of its birth.
Able Jake, with the controlling influence of the jets cut, had yawed
slightly and was now traveling crabwise. The meteor on its own course,
a trifle oblique to that of the ship, struck almost directly the slender
spring steel spine, the frightful energy of the impact transmuted on the
instant into a heat that vaporized several feet of the nose and spine be-
fore the dying shock caused an anguished flexing of the ship's backbone;
thrust violently outward along the radial members and so against the
ribs and hull sheathing on that side. Able Jake's hull split open like a pea
pod for fully half its length and several items of its cargo burst from their
lashings, erupted from the wound.
Johnny was not inboard at the time, but floating, spacesuited along-
side, freeing a fouled lead to the radar bowl, swearing occasionally but
without any real passion at the stupidity of the unknown maintenance
man who failed to secure it properly. For some odd reason he had never
quite lost the thrill of his first trip "outside," and, donning pressure suit
with the speed of long practice, sneaked as many "inspections" as pos-
sible, with or without due cause.
The second's fury that reduced the third stage of a $5,000,000 rocket to
junk was evident to him only as a brilliant blue-white flash, a hammer-
like shock through the antennae support that left his wrist and forearm
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numb. Then a violent wrench as a long cylinder, expelled from the split
hull, caught the loop of his life line and dragged him in till he clashed
hard against it, the suddenly increased tension or a sharp edge parting
the line close to the anchored end. He clawed blindly for a hold, 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 feebly
through a haze of shock to understand what had happened. Orienting
himself he found he was gripping a brace of the open-mounted motor on
one of the Waste Disposal Cylinders. About him he could see other odd
items of the cargo, some clustering fairly closely, others just perceptibly
drifting farther away. To one side, or "downwards" the Earth rolling
vastly, pole over pole, and with her own natural rotation giving an odd
illusion of slipping sideways from under him.
Only a sudden sun glint on the stubby swept-back wings showed him
where Able Jake was. Far away—too far, spinning slowly end over end.
His sideways expulsion from the ship then had been enough to give him
and his companion debris a divergent course.
Spacemen accept without question the fact of a ship or a station al-
ways at 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 any other state of affairs.
Now Johnny had to face the fact that he was in such a posi-
tion—entirely and utterly alone, except for the useless flotsam that came
with him. He might have flung himself into a mad chase after the ship on
his suit jets except that the thought of leaving his little island, cold com-
fort though it was, to plunge into those totally empty depths was sud-
denly horrible.
The tide of panic rose within him. He knew the sickening bodily revolt
of blind unreasoning terror—the terror of the lost, the terror of certain
untimely death, but mostly of death so dreadfully alone.
He might have gone insane. In the face of the insoluble problem his
mind might have retreated into a shadow world of its own, perhaps to
prattle happily the last few hours away. But there was something else
there. The pre-flight school psychiatrist had recognized it, Johnny him-
self probably wouldn't have and it wasn't their policy to tell him. It saved
him. The labored heart pounding and the long shuddering gasps slowed
in time and with the easing of his physical distress he found enough
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