One of them, caught with one foot free of the ship in walking, was broken loose also, though he reached wildly for the steel and missed. The cadet next to him, last in line, came loose in turn.
No more separated, as the successive tugs on the line had used .up the energy of the first cadet's not-so-violent jump. But three cadets now dangled on the line, floating and twisting grotesquely.
The instructor caught the movement out of the corner of his eye, and squatted down. He found what he sought, a steel ring recessed in the ship's side, and snapped his static line to it. When he was certain that the entire party was not going to be dragged loose, he ordered, "Number nine-haul them in, gently-very gently. Don't pull yourself loose doing it."
A few moments later the vagrants were back and sticking to the ship. "Now," said the instructor, "who was responsible for that piece of groundhog stupidity?"
No one answered. "Speak up," he said sharply. "It wasn't an accident; it's impossible to get both feet off unless you hop. Speak up, confound it, or I'll haul every last one of you up in front of the Commandant."
At the mention of that awful word a small, meek voice answered, "I did it, sergeant."
"Hold out your hand, so I'll know who's talking. I'm not a mind reader."
"Vargas-number ten." The cadet held out his arm.
"Okay. Back to the airlock, everybody. Stick together." When they were there, the instructor said, "Inside, Mr. Vargas. Unhook your line, snap to the lock and wait for us. You'll take this drill over-about a month from now."
"But sergeant-"
"Don't give me any lip, or so help me, I'll report you" for AWOL-jumping ship."
Silently the cadet did as ordered. The instructor leaned inside to see that Vargas actually anchored himself, then straightened out. "Come, gentlemen- we'll start again-and no monkey-shines. This is a drill, not a tea party."
Presently Matt said, "Sergeant Hanako-"
"Yes? Who is it?"
"Dodson. Number three. Suppose we had all pulled loose?"
"We'd 'ave had to work our way back on our rocket units."
Matt thought about it. "Suppose we didn't have reaction, units?"
"Nothing much-under these circumstances. The officer of the watch knows we're outside; the radio watch is guarding our frequency. They would just have tracked us by radar until they could man a scooter and come get us. Just the same-listen, all of "you-just because they've got you wrapped in cotton batting is no reason to behave like a bunch of school girls. I don't know of any nastier, or lonelier, way to die than all by yourself in a space suit, with your oxygen running out." He paused. "I saw one once, after they found him and fetched him back."
They were rounding the side of the ship, and the bulging sphere of the Earth had been rising over their metal horizon.
Suddenly the Sun burst into view.
"Mind the glare!" Sergeant Hanako called out. Hastily Matt set his visor for maximum interference and adjusted it to shade his face and eyes. He did not attempt to look at the Sun; he had dazzled his eyes often enough from the viewports of the ship's recreation rooms, trying to blank out the disc of the Sun exactly, with a coin, so that he might see the prominences and the ghostly aurora. It was an unsatisfactory business; the usual result was a headache and spots before his eyes.
But he never grew tired of looking at Earth. *
She hung before him, great and fat and beautiful, and seeming more real than when seen through a port. She swelled across Aquarius, so huge that had she been in Orion she would have concealed the giant hunter from Betelgeuse to Rigel.
Facing them was the Gulf of Mexico. Above it sprawled North America wearing the polar cap like a chef's hat. The pole was still bright under the failing light of late northern summer. The sunrise line had cleared North America except for the tip of Alaska; only the central Pacific was dark.
Someone said, "What's that bright dot in the Pacific, over near the edge? Honolulu?"
Honolulu did not interest Matt; he searched, as usual, for Des Moines-but the Mississippi Valley was cloudy; he could not 'find it. Sometimes he could pick it out with his naked eyes, when the day was clear in Iowa. When it was night in North America he could always tell which jewel of light was home-or thought he could.
They were facing Earth so that the North Pole seemed "up" to them. Far off to the right, almost a ship's width from the Earth, nearly occulting Regulus in Leo, was the Sun, and about half way between the Sun and Earth, in Virgo, was a crescent Moon. Like the Sun, the Moon appeared no larger than she did from Earth surface. The gleaming metal sides of Terra Station, in the sky between Sun and Moon and ninety degrees from Earth, outshone the Moon. The Station, a mere ten miles away, appeared half a dozen times as wide as the Moon.
That's enough rubbernecking," announced Hanako. "Let's .move around." They walked forward, looking the ship over and getting the feel of her size, until the sergeant stopped them. "Any further and we'd be slapping our feet over the Commandant's head. He might be asleep." They sauntered aft and Hanako let them work around the edge of the stern until they looked across the openings of her mighty tubes. He called them back promptly. "Even though she ain't blasted in years, this area is a little bit hot-and you're not shielded from the pile abaft frame ninety-three anyhow. Forward, now!"
By hot he did not mean warm to the touch, but radioactive.
He led them amidships, unhooked himself from the cadet next to him and hooked the lad's line to the ship. "Number twelve-hook to steel," he added.
"The trick to jetting yourself in space,"-he went on, 'lies in balancing your body on the jet-the thrust has to pass through your center of gravity. If you miss and don't correct it quickly, you start to spin, waste your fuel, and have the devil's own time stopping your spin.
"It's no harder than balancing a walking stick on your finger-but the first time you try it, it seems hard.
"Rig out your sight." He touched a stud at his belt; a light metal gadget snapped up in front of his helmet so that a small metal ring was about a yard in front of his face. "Pick out a bright star, or a target of any sort, lined up in the direction you want to go. Then take the ready position- no, no! Not yet-I'll take it."
He squatted down, lifted himself on his hands, and very cautiously broke his boots loose from the side, then steadied himself on a cadet within reach. He turned and stretched out, so that he floated with his back to the ship, arms and legs extended. His rocket jet stuck straight back at the ship from the small of his back; his sight stuck out from his helmet in the opposite direction.
He went on, "Have the firing switch ready in your right hand. Now, have you fellows ever seen a pair of adagio dancers? You know what I mean-a man wears a piece of leopard skin and a girl wearing less than that and they go leaping around the stage, with him catching her?"
Several voices answered yes. Hanako continued, "Then you know what I'm talking about. There's one stunt they always do-the girl jumps and the man pushes her up and balances her overhead on one hand. He has his hand at the small of her back and she lays there, artistic-like.
"That's exactly the way you got to ride a jet. The push comes at the small of your back and you balance on it. Only you have to do the balancing-if the push doesn't pass exactly through your center of gravity, you'll start to turn. You can see yourself starting to turn by watching through your sight.
"You have to correct it before it gets away from you. You do this by shifting your center of gravity. Drag in the arm or leg on the side toward which you've started to turn. The trick is-"
"Just a second, Sarge," someone cut in, "you said that just backwards. You mean; haul in the arm or leg on the other side, don't you?"
"Who's talking?"
"Lathrop, number six. Sorry."
"I meant what I said, Mr. Lathrop."
"But-"
"Go ahead, do it your way. The rest of the class will do it my way. Let's not waste time. Any questions? Okay, stand clear of my jet."