Ozaki looked at him in disbelief. “What’s your game, anyhow?” he demanded.
It was Kurt’s turn to look bewildered. “I haven’t any game. I’m just trying to find out where I am so I’ll know which way to head to get back to the garrison.”
“It’ll be a long, cold walk.” Ozaki laughed and hit the stud that slid back the ray screens on the vision ports. “Take a look.”
Kurt looked out into nothingness, a blue-black void marked only by distant pinpoints of light. He suddenly felt terribly alone, lost in a blank immensity that had no boundaries. Down was gone and so was up. There was only this tiny lighted room with nothing underneath it. The port began to swim in front of his eyes as a sudden, strange vertigo swept over him. He felt that if he looked out into that terrible space for another moment he would lose his sanity. He covered his eyes with his hands and staggered back to the center of the cabin.
Ozaki slid the ray screens back in place. “Kind of gets you first time, doesn’t it?”
Kurt had always carried a little automatic compass within his head. Wherever he had gone, no matter how far afield he had wandered, it had always pointed steadily toward home. Now for the first time in his life the needle was spinning helplessly. It was an uneasy feeling. He had to get oriented.
“Which way is the garrison?” he pleaded.
Ozaki shrugged. “Over there some place. I don’t know whereabouts on the planet you come from. I didn’t pick up your track until you were in free space.”
“Over where?” asked Kurt.
“Think you can stand another look?”
Kurt braced himself and nodded. The pilot opened a side port to vision and pointed. There, seemingly motionless in the black emptiness of space, floated a great greenish-gray globe. It didn’t make sense to Kurt. The satellite that hung somewhat to the left did. Its face was different, the details were sharper than he’d ever seen them before, but the features he knew as well as his own. Night after night on scouting detail for the hunting parties while waiting for sleep he had watched the silver sphere ride through the clouds above him.
He didn’t want to believe but he had to!
His face was white and tense as he turned back to Ozaki. A thousand sharp and burning questions milled chaotically through his mind.
“Where am I?” he demanded. “How did I get out here? Who are you? Where did you come from?”
“You’re in a spaceship,” said Ozaki, “a two-man scout. And that’s all you’re going to get out of me until you get some more work done. You might as well start on this microscopic projector. The thing burned out just as the special investigator was about to reveal who had blown off the commissioner’s head by wiring a bit of plutonite into his autoshave. I’ve been going nuts ever since trying to figure out who did it!”
Kurt took some tools out of the first echelon kit and knelt obediently down beside the small projector.
Three hours later they sat down to dinner. Kurt had repaired the food machine and Ozaki was slowly masticating synthasteak that for the first time in days tasted like synthasteak. As he ecstatically lifted the last savory morsel to his mouth, the ship gave a sudden leap that plastered him and what remained of his supper against the rear bulkhead. There was darkness for a second and then the ceiling lights flickered on, then off, and then on again. Ozaki picked himself up and gingerly ran his fingers over the throbbing lump that was beginning to grow out of the top of his head. His temper wasn’t improved when he looked up and saw Kurt still seated at the table calmly cutting himself another piece of pie.
“You should have braced yourself,” said Kurt conversationally. “The converter’s out of phase. You can hear her build up for a jump if you listen. When she does you ought to brace yourself. Maybe you don’t hear so good?” he asked helpfully.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full, it isn’t polite,” snarled Ozaki.
Late that night the converter cut out altogether. Ozaki was sleeping the sleep of the innocent and didn’t find out about it for several hours. When he did awake, it was to Kurt’s gentle shaking.
“Hey!” Ozaki groaned and buried his face in the pillow.
“Hey!” This time the voice was louder. The pilot yawned and tried to open his eyes.
“Is it important if all the lights go out?” the voice queried. The import of the words suddenly struck home and Ozaki sat bolt upright in his bunk. He opened his eyes, blinked, and opened them again. The lights were out. There was a strange unnatural silence about the ship.
“Good Lord!” he shouted and jumped for the controls. “The power’s off.”
He hit the starter switch but nothing happened. The converter was jammed solid. Ozaki began to sweat. He fumbled over the control board until he found the switch that cut the emergency batteries into the lighting circuit. Again nothing happened.
“If you’re trying to run the lights on the batteries, they won’t work,” said Kurt in a conversational tone.
“Why not?” snapped Ozaki as he punched savagely and futilely at the starter button.
“They’re dead,” said Kurt. “I used them all up.”
“You what?” yelled the pilot in anguish.
“I used them all up. You see, when the converter went out, I woke up. After a while the sun started to come up, and it began to get awfully hot so I hooked the batteries into the refrigeration coils. Kept the place nice and cool while they lasted.”
Ozaki howled. When he swung the shutter of the forward port to let in some light, he howled again. This time in dead earnest. The giant red sun of the system was no longer perched off to the left at a comfortable distance. Instead before Ozaki’s horrified eyes was a great red mass that stretched from horizon to horizon.
“We’re falling into the sun!” he screamed.
“It’s getting sort of hot,” said Kurt. “Hot” was an understatement. The thermometer needle pointed at a hundred and ten and was climbing steadily.
Ozaki jerked open the stores compartment door and grabbed a couple of spare batteries. As quickly as his trembling fingers would work, he connected them to the emergency power line. A second later the cabin lights flickered on and Ozaki was warming up the space communicator. He punched the transmitter key and a call went arcing out through hyperspace. The vision screen flickered and the bored face of a communication tech, third class, appeared.
“Give me Commander Krogson at once!” demanded Ozaki.
“Sorry, old man,” yawned the other, “but the commander’s having breakfast. Call back in half an hour, will you?”
“This is an emergency! Put me through at once!”
“Can’t help it,” said the other, “nobody can disturb the Old Man while he’s having breakfast!”
“Listen, you knucklehead,” screamed Ozaki, “if you don’t get me through to the commander as of right now, I’ll have you in the uranium mines so fast that you won’t know what hit you!”
“You and who else?” drawled the tech.
“Me and my cousin Takahashi!” snarled the pilot. “He’s Reclassification Officer for the Base STAP.”
The tech’s face went white. “Yes, sir!” he stuttered. “Right away, sir! No offense meant, sir!” He disappeared from the screen. There was a moment of darkness and then the interior of Commander Krog-son’s cabin flashed on.
The commander was having breakfast. His teeth rested on the white tablecloth and his mouth was full of mush.
“Commander Krogson!” said Ozaki desperately.
The commander looked up with a startled expression. When he noticed his screen was on, he swallowed his mush convulsively and popped his teeth back into place.
“Who’s there?” he demanded in a neutral voice in case it might be somebody important.