It was one of those million-to-one shots. The meteor, a chunk of space-rock about six feet in diameter, had come boiling across the Solar System, past the sun and the two innermost planets, headed on a near-collision course with Earth. It had actually dipped into the Earth’s atmosphere, which slowed it somewhat, but not enough for it to be captured by Earth’s gravity. It had shot out of the atmosphere again, moving more slowly than before, now red-hot from atmospheric friction, and shortly thereafter it plowed into the Space Station from behind.
From the moment it had first become a potential danger to the Station, it had been unseeable. It was directly between the Station and the massive ball of Earth. It was the one thin segment of space where the radar’s vision was unclear, and it was out of that segment that the juggernaut had come.
The impact could have been worse. In the first place, the meteor was not now traveling at its normal top speed. In the second place, the meteor and the Station were traveling in approximately the same direction, so that the Station, in effect, rolled with the punch. The space-rock broke through the outer hull. Whether or not it penetrated the inner hull no one was immediately sure.
The strike was in Section Five, containing the cargo, with it the seven aluminum crates for QB. At the instant of impact, even before the meteor had ground to a halt, an alarm bell rang in Section Five. The bell meant that the bulkhead doors to that section would be closed in ten seconds.
There was only one person in Section Five at the time, a crewman named Gilmore, who’d been checking the security of the lashings on the cargo. Constant strike drills had made his reaction immediate and instinctive: he ran for the nearest door. He made it, too, all but his left shoe. The bulkhead door neatly snicked off the heel of the shoe as it slammed across the doorway and sealed shut. Gilmore’s shoe was ruined and his sock slightly grazed, but his foot was untouched.
Throughout the rest of the Station, another bell was ringing, this one with a deeper tone and a two-beat rhythm. Harvey Ricks heard it and leaped up from his bunk, forgetting the discomfort that hadn’t yet abated, despite the cheery words of the Cargomaster and the Station Manager. The bell rang on, and Ricks stood quivering in his cubicle, body tensed for fight or flight, mind bewildered and frightened.
The cubicle door jolted open and Blair’s face stuck in long enough for him to shout, “Suit up! It’s under your bunk!” Then he was gone again, and Ricks heard him delivering the same call to Standish and Miller, across the corridor.
Ricks, incredibly grateful for any excuse to be in motion, lunged across the cubicle toward his bunk. He misjudged the force of his leap, with the lesser gravity, and tumbled head over heels across the bunk and into the metal wall. He lay crouched on the bunk, gripping his knees, and whispered desperately to himself, “Take it easy, take it easy, take it easy.”
When he could move without trembling, he got to his feet and dragged the spacesuit out from under the bunk. In the company course, preparatory to leaving on this trip, he’d learned how to don a spacesuit, and he clambered rapidly into this one, closing the inner and outer zippers, and then searched under the bunk again and dragged out the helmet. As he got to his feet, the bell stopped.
Ricks bit down hard on his lower lip, willing himself to be calm. Carefully, he donned the helmet and went through the series of safety checks he’d been taught. Faceplate open, he put his fingers to the row of buttons at the suit’s waist. First finger, left hand; helmet lamp: It worked, he could see it shining against the opposite wall. Click off. First finger, right hand; air intake: It worked, he could hear the faint hissing below his right ear. Cautiously, he closed the faceplate and inhaled. The oxygen mixture was rich, but good. Click off, faceplate open. Second finger, left hand; heat unit: It worked, he could immediately feel the suit warming against his legs and arms. Click off. Second finger, right hand; water intake: It worked, a thin dribble of lukewarm water emerged from the tube in the corner of his mouth. Click off.
So far, so good. He hunched his left shoulder forward, and read the small dials there: Oxygen tanks, full. Water tank, half full. Battery, fully charged. Temperature inside the suit, sixty-eight degrees.
Was the air in the cubicle getting foul? Ricks snapped the faceplate shut, pushed the air intake button. This air was cleaner, he was sure of it.
Where were the others? Where was Blair? He couldn’t hear a sound. The suit cut out all external atmosphere, but not all external sound. He reached up under the helmet chin and switched on the suit radio. A faint crackling of static told him it was on, but other than that there was no sound.
He looked around the cubicle. Was there any air in it now? He could be standing in total vacuum, there was no way to be sure. He could be the only one still alive in the Station.
“Blair?” His own voice, confined within the helmet, sounded harsh and croaking in his ears. The radio gave no answer.
Unwillingly, he moved toward the door. In here, the sound of his pounding heart was magnified, frightening him more than the radio’s silence or the thought that the Station might now be airless. He pushed open the door, and saw Blair standing in the corridor, wearing his spacesuit but holding the helmet casually in his left hand.
Blair looked at him and grimaced, then motioned for Ricks to open his faceplate. Ricks reached up, switched off the radio, and removed his helmet. He managed a grin. “Kind of nice in here,” he said. “Set up a bar, put a couple of chairs around, it could be real livable.” But he heard the tremor in his voice, and he knew that Blair heard it, too.
Blair said, “Get on down by the elevator with Standish and Miller. If you hear another bell, a few notes lower than the first one, with a triple-beep in it, clap the helmet on. Otherwise, keep it off. You don’t have canned air to waste.”
“Watch for the triple beep,” said Ricks jauntily. “Aye aye, sir.”
Blair grunted, and turned away, heading down the corridor in the opposite direction. Ricks watched him go, glaring at his back. ‘I’m a better man than you, Harvey Ricks,’ said that back. ‘You’ll break down, you’ll flunk my course, you’ll never match me or even come close.”
Blair disappeared, through the bulkhead doorway to Section Three, and Ricks turned the other way, walking down the corridor and right to the elevator. Standish and Miller were standing their, helmets on but faceplates open, and Ricks felt somewhat better. His helmet was in his hand.
As he came up to them, Standish said, “What do you suppose it is?” His pale face was even paler now, his large eyes larger.
Ricks shrugged. “It’s probably just a drill. Get us new boys all lathered up, just in case we weren’t taking it all seriously.”
“I thought I felt a tremor just before the bell started,” said Miller. “We may have been hit by a meteor or some such thing.” Ricks shrugged again. “Whatever it was, it doesn’t seem very urgent. Did Papa Blair tell you two about the triple-beep?”
“Sure,” said Miller. “He was sore at you, because you were late getting out in the hall.”
“I was running my suit-check,” said Ricks easily.
“Omigosh!” cried Standish. “I forgot!” He started the check, right then and there.
Watching Standish run through his suit-check, Ricks felt a lot better. He hadn’t forgotten.
Blair found Mendel at the sealed bulkhead between Sections Four and Five. Mendel waved to him and grinned sourly. “I thought you’d be along,” he said.
“What is it? The cargo section?”
“Right through there, boy. Sorry. We’ve had a meteor strike. Son of a gun came at us on the blind side.”