'Hats on, burial party forward.'
There was the whir of motors, the hiss of oiled metal on metal, and the inner lock of the spacelock rose up. The bearers stepped forward, climbing down the ladders with their burden, to place it on the outer door below, which formed the floor of the cylindrical compartment. When they emerged they carried, carefully folded, the blue and white Earth flag. The inner door closed and the pumps throbbed as they exhausted the air.
'Would you actuate the outer lock, Captain,' Kurikka said, and stepped away from the controls.
Don stood beside him and waited until the ready light flashed on. Then he touched the button that, soundlessly in the vacuum, opened the outer lock. The centrifugal force of the ships rotation would carry the body out and away from the ship on a constantly diverging course.
'Dismiss.'
Don turned away, exhausted, and started for his quarters. He had not gone a dozen steps before he heard footsteps running after him.
'Captain, sir, could I see you?'
It was Sparks. There was grease on his hands and face and sooty hollows of fatigue under his eyes. He had not slept in a very long time. He remembered Don's orders not to discuss ship's affairs before the passengers, and followed him in silence to the control-room.
'We've fixed up a transmitter,' he said as soon as the door was closed.
'Wonderful! Now let's see if we can raise Mars Central.'
The receiver was muttering in the background, turned low since Mars Central was broadcasting a taped recording on their ship's frequency. It repeated, over and over, that scheduled contacts had not been received, and would the Kepler report at once. Sparks turned up the receiver volume so they would hear at once if their message was received, and the recorded transmission interrupted.
'Doesn't look like much,' Electrician's Mate Gold admitted, 'but it works fine.'
'Just not very powerful,' Sparks admitted, looking at the collection of parts spread on the table before them. There was a replacement unit from the radar, the amplifier stage from the wardroom hi-fi tape deck, and even some components from the electronic ovens. Wires and waveducts crawled through the breadboard jumble and a heavy cable snaked out to the power supply.
'Are you sure it's putting out a signal?' Don asked.
'Absolutely,' Sparks said, and made a careful adjustment on the variable condensers. 'I've sent it on to our reception frequency. The broadcast signal will be picked up on our receiving aerial. I've got the gain turned way down'
He flicked on the microphone and whispered into it. His words boomed out of the receiver, drowning out the message from Mars.
'Sounds pretty strong to me,' Don said.
'Yeah.' Gold was very gloomy. 'But we just broadcast from the antenna to the aerial, maybe 100 feet. We got how many million miles to Mars?'
'But they have some great receivers there,' Sparks said defensively. 'They've got a parabolic dish antenna that can pick up a signal...'
That's enough,' Don said. 'Let's see if we can get through.'
Word must have gone out, because Kurikka came in with Dr Ugalde, and Purser Jonquet hurried up soon after them. Sparks made painfully exact adjustments on the frequency, testing the signal over and over before he was satisfied. He turned the power full on, then pulled the microphone to him. He coughed self-consciously once, then flipped on the transmission switch.
Johannes Kepler calling Mars Central... come in Mars Central... how do you read me ? Come in...
He repeated the call, over and over, in patient clear tones. The receiver with its taped message droned accompaniment to his words. Then he flicked off the power and leaned back. There was no change in the message they were receiving-
'It's not getting through ?' Don asked.
'Too early to tell yet, sir. At these distances it takes a couple of minutes for our signal to get there, and the same amount of time for theirs to get back.' He turned on the set and began calling again.
The taped message did not change, while the big red second hand of the clock on the bulkhead continued its slow sweeps.
Minutes passed. No one wanted to ask the question and the silence was worse than words. It was Sparks who finally broke the spell. He dropped the mike and flipped off the power supply. When he turned they saw that his face was beaded with sweat.
I'm sorry, Captain, but its no go. Our signal is getting out - but it just isn't strong enough. There is still plenty of background noise from the storm, and we're not punching through it...'
He stopped as the tape recorded message cut off, and there was a moment of hushed silence before a new voice came on.
'Johannes Kepler - are you broadcasting? We have been picking up traces of a signal n your frequency, but cannot read your signal. Are you broadcasting? Repeat - can you hear me? This is Mars Central calling the Johannes Kepler. We have a very weak signal on your frequency but cannot read it...'
'It's the storm,' Sparks explained, 'that and the low power...'
'You did your best, Sparks,' Don told him. 'No one is blaming you.'
There was no one who could be blamed.
But that did not help.
If they could not contact Mars they were as good as dead at this moment.
The others had turned away, but Don was looking at the crude transmitter, glaring at it, as though he could force it to work just by strength of will alone. There had to be a way - and this radio was the only hope they had left.
'Isn't there any way you can increase the power?' he asked.
Sparks shook his head. 'I've already got all the circuits on a forty per cent overload. They can take that for a while without burning out. You saw, I kept cutting the current every few minutes. Any more and they would pop as soon as I turned on the juice.'
'Are there any other ways you can beef up the circuits?'
'Negative on that, I'm afraid. Wiring up this thing was the easiest job. Me and Gold spent most of the time seeing what was the best circuit we could get out of the junk we could find. But the signal will improve as we get closer to Mars. They'll hear us eventually.'
'Eventually is a word that is not too good,' Ugalde said. He came up next to the radio and stood, rocking on his toes with his hands behind his back, as though he were addressing a class. 'Now while I admit with great chagrin that being a navigator is impossible for me at this moment, I am still yet able to calculate an orbit. Roughly mind you, but I have worked out as best I can from the figures of the last calculations made by the deceased navigator. Our course error grows greater with every passing moment, and the greater the error the harder it is to correct. If I may give an analogy. Imagine, if you will, a very long, wide slope, down which a ball is rolling. If the ball rolls straight down it will strike a stick standing at the foot of the slope. Now, if the ball is deflected by a slight push, it will roll at a slightly diverging angle from the true course. But a slight push will set it straight so it hits the stick after all. A slight push soon after the deflection. If the correction is not made at once, after a period of time the ball will be rolling many feet away from the proper course, and a really hard blow will be needed to correct it. The longer the wait, the more force that is needed. Of course you realize the ball is our ship, Mars the hypothetical stick. We have delayed a long time already. If we wait too much longer we may not be able to make the corrections that will bring us back to the proper way. Contact must be established with Mars - and at once.