There were now none of the amenities which had mitigated the hardships of the outward journey, for neither Earth nor Mars radio programs could be received, nor were there any movies or intership visits to break the monotony. The most careful movement through the weightless spaces of Polaris' nacelle brought collisions with sleeping men suspended between the bulkheads or with someone attempting to beguile the time in desultory conversation with a listless neighbor. The tiny library's short stock of books were read and reread so often that the only exercise for the mind was to learn some classic by heart. The only physical exercise was that provided by a venerable spring-exerciser, for Holt had been forced to abandon Polaris' gravity cell.
The forty-second day of their lonesome voyage saw Nordenskjold in a sinking condition. Three days before, the ship's medic and Svetla, the Martian, had been compelled to amputate the injured leg. Svetla performed the operation and Holt acted as anesthetist; but the youth failed to rally. He died in Holt's arms.
Holt moved from the sickbay into the crowded living space and called for silence, after closing the oval door upon all that remained of the intrepid pilot.
"Men of Polaris, he said quietly, "our friend, Trygve Nordenskjold, has left us forever. Many of you owe your lives to his skill and coolness on that unforgettable day when he set down Goddara" damaged boat without injury to a man. None of us can ever forget what a man he was, either on our home planet, through the long reaches of the sky, or in the hospitable underground galleries of Mars.
Nordenskjold was a true Viking of the Heavens, and we shall give him a Viking's burial in the infinite vastness of space, a burial not unlike those which honored his knightly forebears upon the wide and stormy ocean. At 0400 tomorrow, our last remaining busy bee will be launched into space, never to return. In it will rest all that is mortal of Trygve Nordenskjold. When you hear the call, 'All hands to bury the dead,' let each man send a heartfelt prayer out into space with our departed comrade."
With reverent hands, the remains of the dead hero were strapped into the pilot's seat of the bee as it lay moored before the airlock. A strong spring was attached to the throttle, which was held closed by an explosive bolt. The latter was connected by a cable with an electrical socket outside the nacelle. As the clock struck four, Holt raised the microphone to his lips. "All hands to bury the dead," he said hoarsely. "Since it has pleased God in his almighty wisdom to take from this space ship the soul of our true comrade and brother, we now commit his body to the depths of space…" With the final word he touched the switch under his hand. There was a flash of blue-green flame outside the stern ports and the dead pilot sped forth into eternity, impelled by a fiery jet which, in an atomic and interstellar age, still was symbolic of the floating pyres in which his Viking ancestors had journeyed to Valhalla.
In the Administration Building on Christmas Island, Catherine Holt and General Braden sat amid wreaths of stale cigarette smoke and between piles of burnt-out stubs.
Polaris had been overdue for three nights, and neither man nor woman had closed an eye for twenty four hours.
Had the ship's maneuver of departure failed, so that she was still circling Mars, unable to descend to its hospitable surface and hopelessly exhausting the last supplies of nourishment and oxygen? Could some mischance have carried the bold vessel into the path of some big meteor, unlikely though this contingency was? Countless possibilities of disaster existed, particularly for a space ship alone amid the vastnesses of space. A navigation error might have swept the solitary craft far from her home planet. Perhaps Polaris had missed her meeting with Earth, or failed to develop the thrust required to convert her voyaging ellipse to a satellite path around her home planet… None could tell.
Lunetta had been alerted for several days. Her radio stations were continuously manned in the hope that their directive searching antennae might pick up some weak signal from Polaris' feeble transmitter. The convoy itself regularly sent in Knight's bihourly reports, but as to Polaris, all was silence.
The tropic dawn began to spread over the island. Catherine Holt slept the sleep of exhaustion with her head on the conference table, while Braden was just about to ignite his fiftieth or sixtieth cigarette. Suddenly, a high-pitched buzzing split the silence. Braden snatched the telephone.
"Braden speaking."
"Report for you, sir, from Central Radio, Christmas."
"Go ahead, damn it! What are you waiting for?"
"Lunetta's observatory reports blinker signals apparently reading, 'SOS, Polaris.'
Lunetta reports blinker signals apparently from a satellite orbit considerably distant from, but encircling Earth. Is now attempting to get its coordinates."
"Hold everything," said Braden, "I'll be in your station in a jiffy…"
Catherine awakened and gazed anxiously at the general, who returned her look half quizzically, although tears rolled down his lean cheeks.
"It's Gary." He said. "Seems he's bored because we haven't come to drag him out of his orbit and wants to put in a kick about it…"
Two hours later, AstroUner, with Braden and his staff on board, was underway to the departure orbit, where her top stage was retanked from a reserve held there for just such a contingency. Picking up two busy bees, the great space ship again started her rocket motor and entered upon an extended ellipse leading further into space. This ellipse was computed so that its apogee might contact the distant satellite orbit now followed by
Polaris and determined by Lunetta's observatory. Arrived at apogee, AstroUner carried out a short maneuver of adaptation to the local orbital velocity.
Her crew soon beheld Polaris, a scant ten miles distant. She was reduced to a skeleton by the absence of the great spherical tanks and was hardly recognizable, but reassuring blinker signals conveyed the welcome news that there was life aboard.
Braden hastened into one of the busy bees picked up by AstroUner in the orbit of departure and fairly hurled himself across the intervening distance. Within twenty minutes of sighting the lost space ship, he entered her airlock and ordered her exhausted occupants to prepare to disembark into the busy bees which now shuttled excitedly between the two space vessels.
The radioed report that Astroliner was alongside the lone Polaris brought not only Catherine Holt, but a swarm of reporters, workers, and relatives of the long-lost spacefarers to the great landing strip of Christmas Island, and soon the flagship of the Space Forces could be seen making her calculated approach over the runway markers. Her wheels already in rapid motion, she touched down and slowed to a dignified stop alongside the tractor which hauled the massive vessel with her raking wings to the Terminal Building.
The door in the ship's nose was thrown open and in it appeared a bent, gray-haired figure supported on either side by Braden and his Chief of Staff. It was Gary Holt.
Tenderly, the general and his companion half led, half carried him to one of the nineteen litters which had been hurried to Astroliner' exit gangway. With a sign of complete exhaustion, and breathing heavily, Gary Holt lay motionless as Catherine enfolded him in her arms, covering his face with tears and begging him to answer her caresses.
"Darling, all I've wanted was you, and now I have you, I find I need weightlessness to do more than look at you! It seems impossible now that during most of my life, such a pressure as I now feel has oppressed me…"