The plants in the air-conditioner had died for lack of attention and carbon dioxide. Matt took over the job while the others helped in the almost endless chores of checking every circuit, every instrument, every gadget necessary to the ship's functioning. It was a job which should have been done at a repair base and could not have been accomplished if there had actually been much wrong.
Oscar and Matt squeezed an hour out of sleep to explore 1987-CD, a job that mixed mountain climbing with suit-jet work. The asteroid had a gravitational field, of course, but even a mass the size of a small .mountain is negligible compared with that of a-planet. They simply could not feel it; muscles used to opposing the tenacious pull of robust Terra made nothing of the frail pull of 1987-CD. ' At last the Pathfinder was cast loose and her drive tested by a scratch crew consisting of Captain Yancey at the controls and Lieutenant Novak in the power room. The Aes Triplex lay off a few miles, waited until she blasted her jet for a few seconds, then joined her. The two ships tied together and Captain Yancey and the chief engineer came back into the Aes Triplex.
"She's all yours, Hartley," he announced. "Test her yourself, then take over when you are ready."
"If she suits you she suits me. With your permission, sir, I'll transfer my crew now."
"So? Very well, Captain-take command and carry out your orders. Log it, Mister," Captain Yancey added, over his shoulder to the officer of the watch.
Thirty minutes later the split crew passed out through the airlock of the Aes Triplex and into the airlock of the other. P.R.S. Pathfinder was back in commission.
Remaining with the Aes Triplex was Captain Yancey,
Lieutenant Thurlow, now executive officer and astrogator, Sublieutenant Peters, now chief engineer, Cadet Jensen, chief communications officer, and Cadets Jarman and Dodson, watch officers, all departments-and Dr. Picketing, ship's surgeon.
Commander Miller, captain of the Pathfinder, had one less officer than Captain Yancey, but all of his officers were experienced; Captain Yancey had elected to burden himself with the cadets. He would have assumed command of the derelict himself and taken his chances with her, except for one point- the law did not permit it. He could place a master aboard her and put her back in commission, but there was no one present with authority to relieve him of his own ship-he was prisoner of his own unique status, commanding officer operating alone.
In her original flight plan it had been intended that the Pathfinder should make port at Deimos, Mars, when Mars overtook her and was in a favorable position. The" delay caused by the disaster made the planned orbit quite out of the question; Mars would not be at the rendezvous. Furthermore Captain Yancey wanted to get the astounding evidence contained in the Pathfinder to Terra Base as quickly as possible; there was little point in sending it to the outpost on Mars' outer satellite.
Accordingly reaction mass was pumped from the Aes Triplex to the smaller ship until her tanks were full and a fast, fairly direct, though uneconomical, orbit to Earth was plotted for her. The Aes Triplex, using an economical "Hoh-mann"-type, much longer orbit, would mosey in past the orbit of Mars, past the orbit of Earth (Earth would not be anywhere close at the time), in still further, swinging! around the Sun and out again, catching up with Earth J nearly a year later than the Pathfinder. She had mass to Hohmann, Dr. Walter-The Attainability of the Celestial Bodies, Munich, 1925. This pioneer work in astrogation, written long before the flight of the Kilroy Was Here, remains the foundation work in its field. All subsequent work is refinement of basic principles set forth by Hohman. accomplish this, even after replenishing the Pathfinder, but she was limited to time-wasting, but fuel-saving, orbits more usual to merchant vessels than to ships of the Patrol.
Matt, in one of his multiple roles as assistant astrogator, noticed a peculiarity of the orbit and called it to Oscar's attention. "Say, Oz, come and look at this-when we get to perihelion point, the other side of the Sun, we almost clip a cloud off your home town. See?"
Oscar looked over the charted positions. "Well, darn if we don't! What's the nearest approach?"
"Less than a hundred thousand miles. Well tack on her a bit-the Old Man is a heller for efficient orbits, I find. Want to jump ship?"
"We'd be going a trifle fast for that," Oscar commented dryly.
"Oh, where's the old pioneer spirit? You could swipe one of the jeeps and be gone before you're missed."
"Gosh, I'd like to. It would be nice to have some leave." Oscar shook his head sadly and stared at the chart.
"I know what's eating on you-since you've been made the head of a department you've acquired a sense of responsibility. How does it feel to be one of the mighty?"
Tex had come into the chartroom while they were talking. He chipped in with, "Yeah, come on, Oz-tell your public."
Oscar's fair skin turned pink. "Quit riding me, you guys. It's not my fault."
"Okay, you can get up now. Seriously," Matt went on, "this is quite a break for all of us-acting ship's officers on what was supposed to be a training tour. You know what I think?"
"Do you think?" inquired Tex.
"Shut up. If we keep our noses clean and get any chance to show some stuff, it might mean brevet commissions for all of us."
"Captain Yancey give me a brevet?" said Tex. "A fat chance!"
"Well, Oscar almost certainly. After all, he is chief com officer."
"I tell you that doesn't mean a thing," protested Oscar. ] "Sure, I've got the tag-with nobody to communicate with, j We're out of range, except for the Pathfinder, and she's ; pulling away fast." j
"We won't always be out of range." ;
"It won't make any difference. Can you see the Old Man letting me-or any of us-do anything without staring down the backs of our necks? Anyhow, I don't want a brevet. Suppose we got back and it wasn't confirmed? Embarrassing!"
"I'd jump at the chance," announced Tex. "It may be the only way I'll ever get one."
"Drop the orphan-child act,- Tex. Suppose your Uncle Bodie heard you talking like that." j'
In fact, the atmosphere in the ship was very different,] even though the Captain, or Lieutenant Thurlow, or both, supervised them very carefully. Captain Yancey took toil calling them by their first names at mess and dropped the use of "cadet" entirely. He sometimes referred to the "ship's officers," using the term so that it plainly included the three cadets. But there was no suggestion of brevet rank made.
Out of the asteroid belt, out of radio range, and in interminable free fall, the ship's duties were light. The cadets had plenty of time to study, enough time for card games and bull sessions. Matt caught up with his assignments and reached the point where he was digging into the ship's library for advanced work, for the courses outlined for them when they left the Randolph had been intended for a short cruise.
The Captain set up a seminar series, partly to pass his own time and partly as a supplement to their education. It was supposed to illustrate various problems faced by a Patrol officer as a spaceman, or in his more serious role as a diplomatic representative. Yancey lectured well; the cadets found, too, that he could be drawn into reminiscence. It was both enjoyable and instructive and helped! to pass the weary weeks. |
At long, long last they were within radio range of Venus] -and there was mail for all of them, messages that had been chasing them half around the Solar System. An official despatch from the Department congratulated the Commanding Officer on the recovery of the Pathfinder and commended the ship's company-this was entered, in due course, in the record of each. A private message from Hartley Miller told Captain Yancey that the trip home had been okay and that the longhairs were tearing same over the contents of the ship. Yancey read this aloud to them.