“Now we found it,” said Ryerson. “With three weeks’ food supply to spare.”
“And the germanium still to get,” said Maclaren.
Nakamura drew a breath. His eyes went to the deck “beneath” his feet. Far aft was a storage compartment which had been left open to the bitterness of space; and a dead man, lashed to a stanchion.
“Had there been four of us,” he said, “we would have consumed our supplies already and be starving. I am most humbly grateful to Engineer Sverdlov.”
Maclaren’s tone was dry. “He didn’t die for that reason.”
“No. But has he given us less merely because it was an accident?”
They floated a while in stillness. Then Maclaren shook himself and said: “We’re wasting time. This ship was never intended to land on a planet. Since I’ve already informed you any world we found might very likely use vacuum for sky, and you didn’t object, I assume the aircraft can make a landing.”
Nakamura crossed his legs and rested impassively, hands folded on his lap. “How familiar are you with the standard exploratory technique?” he inquired.
“Not very,” confessed Maclaren. “I gather that aircraft are preferred for reasons of mass economy.”
“And even more for maneuverability. A nuclear-powered vessel, using wings and turbojets, can rise high into an atmosphere, above the worst air resistance, without having to expend the reaction mass of a rocket. Likewise it can land more easily and safely in the first place. The aircraft which we carry, dismantled, are intended to leave their orbiting mother ship with a short rocket burst, slip into the atmosphere of a new planet, and descend. The return is more difficult, of course, but they get into the stratosphere before applying the non-ionic rocket drive. This in turn takes them into space proper, where their ion accelerators will work. Naturally, the cabins being sealed, any kind of atmosphere will serve them.
“Now, this is for exploration purposes. But these auxiliary craft are also capable of landing on rockets alone. When the time has come to establish a beam-relay station, some airless lifeless satellite is chosen, to avoid the necessity of quarantine. The craft shuttle back and forth, carrying the ship’s dismantled transceiver. This is reassembled on the surface. Thereby the satellite’s own mass becomes available to the matterbank, and any amount of material can be reconstructed according to the signals from the home station. The first things sent through are usually the parts for a much larger transceiver station, which can handle many tons of mass at a time.”
“Well, good,” said Maclaren. “That was more or less what I thought. Let’s land and — oh, oh.”
Ryerson felt a smile tugging his lips, though it was not a happy one. “You see?” he murmured.
Maclaren regarded him closely. “You don’t seem too discouraged,” he said. “There must be an answer.”
Ryerson nodded. “I’ve already spoken with Seiichi about it, while you were busy determining the exact characteristics of the planet. It’s not going to be fun, but — Well, let him tell you.”
Maclaren said slowly: “I had hoped, it was at least possible, that any planet we found would have a surviving satellite, small enough to land the whole ship on, or lay alongside, if you want to consider it that way. It would have been the best thing for us. But I’m sure now that this lump has no companion of any kind. So we’ll have to get our germanium down there.”
“Which we could also have done, had we been fortunate enough to locate the planet sooner,” Nakamura told him. “We can take aircraft down to the surface even now. But we would have to transship all the mining and separating equipment, establish a working space and an airdome — It is too much work for three men to do before our three weeks of supplies are eaten up, and then the actual mining would still remain.”
Maclaren nodded. “I should have thought of this myself,” he said. “I wonder how sane and sensible we are — how can we measure rationality, when we are all the human race we know for tens of light-years? Well. So I didn’t think and you didn’t talk. Nevertheless, I gather there’s a way out of our dilemma.”
“Yes,” said the pilot. “A riskful way, but any other is certain death. We can take the ship down, and use her for our ready-made workshop and airdome.”
“The Cross? But… well, of course the gravitation here is no problem to her, nor the magnetism now that the drive is shielded — but we can’t make a tail landing. We’d crumple the web, and… hell’s clanging bells, she can’t land at all! She’s not designed for it! Not maneuverable enough, why, it takes half an hour just to swing her clear around on gyros.”
Nakamura said calmly, “I have made calculations for some time now, preparing for this eventuality. There was nothing we could do before knowing what we would actually find, but I do have some plans drawn up. We have six knocked-down auxiliary craft. Yes? It will not take long to assemble their non-ionic rocket drives, which are very simple devices, clamp these to the outside hull, and run their control systems through the ship’s console. I think if we all work hard we can have it assembled, tested, and functioning in two or three days. Each pair of rockets should be so mounted as to form a couple which will rotate the ship around one of the three orthogonal space axes. No? Thus the spaceship will become most highly responsive to piloting. Furthermore, we shall cut up the aircraft hulls, as well as whatever else we may need and can spare for this purpose, such as interior fittings. From this, we shall construct a tripod enclosing and protecting the stern assembly. It will be clumsy and unbalanced, of course — but I trust my poor maneuverings can compensate for that — and it will be comparatively weak — but with the help of radar and our powerful ion-blast, the ship can be landed very gently.”
“Hm-m-m.” Maclaren rubbed his chin. His eyes flickered between the other two faces. “It shouldn’t be hard to fix those rocket motors in place, as you say. But a tripod more than a hundred meters long, for a thing as massive as this ship — I don’t know. If nothing else, how about the servos for it?”
“Please.” Nakamura waved his words aside. “I realize we have not time to do this properly. My plan does not envision anything with self-adjusting legs. A simple, rigid structure must suffice. We can use the radar to select a nearly level landing place.”
“All places are, down there,” said Maclaren. “That iron was boiling once, and nothing has weathered it since. Of course, there are doubtless minor irregularities, which would topple us on our tripod — with a thousand tons of mass to hit the ground!”
Nakamura’s eyes drooped. “It will be necessary for me to react quickly,” he said. “That is the risk we take.”
When the ship was prepared, they met once on the observation deck, to put on their spacesuits. The hull might be cracked in landing. Maclaren and Ryerson would be down at the engine controls, Nakamura in the pilot’s turret, strapped into acceleration harness with only their hands left free.
Nakamura’s gaze sought Maclaren’s. “We may not meet again,” he said.
“Possible,” said Maclaren.
The small, compact body held steady, but Nakamura’s face thawed. He had suddenly, after all the time which was gone, taken on an expression; and it was gentle.
“Since this may be my last chance,” he said, “I would like to thank you.”
“Whatever for?”
“I am not afraid any more.”
“Don’t thank me,” said Maclaren, embarrassed. “Something like that, a chap does for himself, y’ know.”
“You earned me the time for it, at least.” Nakamura made a weightless bow. “Sensei, give me your blessing.”