"Really," Damian said, putting his hand out, then pulling it back. "It's not right. Shouldn't we. . adjust her garments?"
"Help yourself," Chuck smiled. "But I was enjoying it. I've never seen — what do you call them? knickers — quite like that before. Very fancy." But he was pulling her skirt down even as he said it. Her head turned and she moaned.
"Can she be badly hurt?" Damian asked. "Have you done anything for her?"
"I have no idea, and no, in that order. Unless you're a doctor—"
"No, I'm not."
"— there is nothing we can do. So I let her sleep. When she conies to I'll give her a slug of this paint remover. Never give drink to anyone unconscious, it could get in the lungs, First Aid Course 3B, Space Academy."
Both men watched, silently, as her eyelids slowly opened, disclosing gray, lovely eyes that moved their gaze across their faces and about the cramped interior of the capsule. Then she began to scream, emptying her lungs in a single spasm of sound then gasping them full again only to repeat the terrified sound. Chuck let her do this three times before he cracked her across the face with his open hand leaving an instant red imprint on the fairness of her skin. The screams broke off and she began to sob.
"You shouldn't—" Damian began.
'"Of course I should," Chuck said. "Medicinal. She got it out of her system and now she's having a good cry. I'm Chuck.” he told the girl, "and this is Damian. What's your name?"
"What happened to us? Where are we?"
"Chuck and Damian. What's yours?"
"Please tell me. I'm Helena Tyblewski. What happened?"
"I know you, at least I've heard of you," Damian said. "You're with the Polish artists at Mooncenter—"
"Socialities later, boy. We're in an emergency capsule, Helena, in good shape. We have water, food, oxygen — and a radio to call for help. I'm telling you that so you'll realize how well off we are compared to the others aboard the Yuri. There was an accident. Everyone else is dead."
"And. . what will happen to us?"
"A good question. You can help me find out. Drain this vodka bottle, I need the empty flask. And let me have your shoes — yours too, Damian."
"What are you talking about? What for?" Chuck began to loosen the wing nuts that held the deadlight sealed in place.
"A fair question," he said. "Since I'm the only member of the ship's company present, I'm automatically in command. But we're a little too cramped here for me to pull rank, so I'll tell you what I know and what I want to do. When the accident happened we were, roughly, a quarter of the way from the moon to Earth. Where we are now I have no idea, and it is important that I find out."
The deadlight came free and he swung it to one side, disclosing the capsule's single porthole. Outside, the stars cut ribbons of white light across the darkness, while the Earth made a wider, greenish band.
"As you can see we are rotating about the major axis of this thermos bottle. I'll need star sights to plot our position, which means we have to slow down or stop this thing. Luckily the outer hatch opening faces the direction of motion, so anything ejected from it will slow us down. The more the mass and the greater the speed of ejection, the more retardation we'll get. There isn't much surplus to throw away in one of these capsules, that's why I want your shoes. The temperature controls work fine, so you won't need them. Okay?"
There were no arguments. Their shoes went into the lock along with the empty flask, some of the padding from the wall, and all the other small items that could be accumulated. Chuck sealed the inner hatch and pumped in oxygen from the tanks to raise the pressure as high as possible. When he threw the handle that opened the latch on the outer door, the capsule seemed to start spinning around them and they tumbled together against the wall.
"Sorry," Damian said, reddening as he realized that his arms were around Helen and he was lying on top of her. She smiled as they drifted away from the padding and there was suddenly no up and down as they floated in free fall. Chuck frowned at the stars moving leisurely by the port.
"That should be good enough to get some sightings. If not, we can jettison some more junk."
He undipped his comparison dectant from the holder on his belt and pointed it out of the port, squinting through it. "That is going to take a while," he said, "so relax. With this gadget I can measure the angular distance of up to five astronomical objects; it will remember the angles and its tiny, microminiaturized brain can even do some of the basic computations. But it will still take time. So let's trade confidences, get to know each other, real chummy if you get what I mean. Me, I'm the simple one. Bronx High School, Columbia, the Academy — then the moon run ever since. What about you, Helena? Our limey friend said you were an artiste. A singer? Going to let us have an aria or two?"
Helena compressed her lips. "I am not that sort of artiste. I create— the newest and most expressive art form, light mobiles."
"I've seen them," Chuck said, sighting on another star. "They always hurt my eyes and give me a headache. What about you, Damian, are you a bank robber or an embezzler?"
"Sir!"
"Well don't blame me for asking, not after all that mumbling you were doing about thirty thousand pounds, gone, gone."
Damian clutched his hands together, tightly. "I'm with the British embassy. It was currency, in my charge. I was transferring it back to Earth. Now it's gone…"
Chuck laughed. "Don't be an idiot. It's just paper, it's been destroyed. They'll just write it off and print some more."
Damian smiled sheepishly. "You're right, of course. I never stopped to think of that after the accident. Stupid of me."
"We all have our bad days. Now talk to yourselves for a couple of minutes while I run these figures through the meat grinder."
The conversation lagged while he pecked at the tiny computer. As the first shock of the tragedy faded, the other two began to feel the pressing loneliness of their position. Once they stopped talking the only sound was the almost inaudible hum of the air-circulating fan, and the occasional click of the computer. The naked bulb shone down, the stars drifted by in the blackness of the port. They were warm and comfortable in their capsule. Six feet by twelve feet inside. A container of comfort, one man wide and two men high, packed with the necessities to sustain life. Yet two inches away, on the other side of the insulated wall, was the endless emptiness of space.
"That's that," Chuck said, and slipped the dectant back into its sheath. "Now let's see what the chow is like in this commie canister." The others almost smiled at the welcome hoarseness of his voice.
"What about your figures? Where are we?" Helena asked.
"I have no idea," Chuck said, throwing back a large padded lid in the end of the capsule. "That's not exactly correct. I have a reading that places us somewhere between the Earth and the moon. But I wasn't on the bridge and I have no idea where we were before the explosion. So we'll wait awhile, at least an hour, then I'll shoot some more sights. Comparing the two positions should give us an idea of our course and speed. Anyone thirsty?" He reached in and removed one of the containers of water that were ranked like giant bullets in a clip.
"I will take some, please," Helena said.
"Just suck it through the teat in the end…"
"I have drunk it free fall before, thank you."
"Sorry, sweetheart, I forgot you were an old space hand. Something to eat with it?" He withdrew a flat, brownish package and frowned at it. "Looks like a cardboard deck of cards. Can anyone here read Russian better than I can?"