“Well, I was pretty surprised, I can tell you. I didn’t know what to make of it. Like I said, astronauts are supposed to be super stable, and here this guy comes running along stark naked and jumps into my KG tank.”
“Can I have some of that?” Boiler pointed to an unopened packet still resting in Doolittle’s tray.
Doolittle nodded and handed the corporal the plastic container. He didn’t care much for liquid rolls and butter.
“Well, naturally,” Pinback continued relentlessly, “I was gonna try and save him… even though by that time, what with the super cold and corrosiveness and all, there probably wasn’t much left of him… but I mean, what’s a guy gonna do? I couldn’t just stand around and do nothing, could I?”
He shrugged off the nagging feeling that he shouldn’t be saying all this, that he’d gone through this insane dream too many times already. The feeling stayed with him, but he continued.
“So I put on his starsuit for protection, and I’m getting ready to go in after him… right, you guys? So what happened was that before I could leap into the vat…”
Doolittle gave him a sad look.
“…this other fella came running along. He took a fast look at the name on the starsuit and says, ‘Hey, Sergeant Pinback, you’ve gotta board immediately because we’re gonna launch in twenty minutes.’ ”
Doolittle’s patience was just about exhausted. “You told us this four years ago.”
“And I tried to tell him,” Pinback continued, ignoring the lieutenant’s comment, “that I wasn’t really astronaut Sergeant Pinback.”
What was that? Hold on there… you gone bananas or something, Pinback? Of course you’re Sergeant Pinback. Who else could you be but Sergeant Pinback?
“… but I couldn’t figure out how to make the helmet radio work…”
“It’s funny, you know,” Boiler said, trying hard to remember exactly and rubbing his chin, “but I’m sure it was four years ago.”
“Maybe,” Doolittle admitted. It was beginning to bother him now. At first he had shrugged off these trivial lapses of memory. After all, in twenty years it was hardly reasonable to expect that you’d be able to recall every tiny little thing that happened.
But the lapses seemed to be increasing. And he wasn’t alone in forgetting things. Boiler, too, was having trouble with the same memories—memories of things not directly connected with the operation of the ship. Pinback, poor Pinback, had problems of his own, as did Talby.
Doolittle could remember everything about his personal life before starting the mission, and everything necessary to the Dark Star’s operation—but anything in between gave him increasing trouble. It was beginning to be as if he had had no personal life at all in the past twenty years. As though nothing had happened not involving the mission.
As though his mind now as well as his body was be coming an extension of the ship. A voice screamed inside him.
One more bomb! One more drop, and they could start home.
But would they get there in time…?
Talby was seated before the computer keyboard. He blended neatly into the machinery. The main computer screen faced him, illuminated from within, framed by the green glow of the computer-chamber lighting.
At the moment the screen was flashing an ultrarapid series of mathematical symbols and words for Talby’s perusal. As usual, he had better luck following the symbols than the words.
It gave him some idea of where to look for the trouble. The computer’s own tracing circuits had apparently been damaged. That accounted for its failure to locate and announce the trouble. It needed help—Talby’s.
Repunching orders via the keyboard, he called up a chart of the Dark Star. More buttons pushed, more detailed graphs appeared.
He was clearly going to have to pinpoint the problem himself. More requests were fed into the ship’s electronic ganglion. The area of the ship under consideration was patiently reduced as one section after another checked out clean.
Finally an intermittent red flash appeared on the screen, accusing the rearmost section of the ship’s schematics.
He immediately punched out a request for that area, then saw it appear obediently on screen. The red flash was still there. He punched for an enlargement of the damaged area. It expanded tremendously. A final enlargement, and the bright red warning light turned into a winking arrow jabbing at a back section of the emergency airlock. And at last, words appeared underneath the diagram.
COMMUNICATIONS LASER NO. 17—EMERGENCY AIRLOCK
Talby’s thoughts moved one step ahead of the series of repair-and-realignment orders that followed. He thumbed the intercom switch to one side without even looking at it and spoke toward the mike.
“Lieutenant Doolittle, this is Talby. Please reply, Lieutenant, wherever you are.”
“I’m here, Talby,” came Doolittle’s voice. “What is it?”
The astronomer considered his words carefully. He had to impress the importance of the situation on Doolittle without necessarily alarming him. He didn’t want the lieutenant to send Boiler or Pinback back to help him—they made him nervous. He was pretty sure he could handle it alone, without having to look at another human being.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your evening meal, sir, but I’m in the computer room. I’ve located the malfunction.”
“Malfunction? What malfunction?”
“You remember, sir. The one that the computer couldn’t locate. You were in the dome with me when it came in.”
“Oh… sure,” Doolittle replied in a tone that hinted he was anything but.
“The scanner shows it to be a breakdown in the number seventeen communications laser, down in the emergency airlock. I can’t tell exactly what’s wrong with the laser, except that it has something to do with alignment. That could be dangerous, but since nothing disastrous has happened since the malfunction first occurred, I tend to think it’s okay… I’m going to put on a starsuit in a little while just in case, and go back and see if I can’t fix the trouble.”
“Sure, sounds good, Talby.”
“Just wanted to let you know, Lieutenant.”
“Yeah, fine. Doolittle out.” He slipped the mike back under the playback grid.
Now what had Talby been talking about? Some sort of malfunction? Well, it didn’t matter. If it were really important, he would see that Doolittle knew about it.
“Why doesn’t Talby ever eat down here with the rest of us?” Boiler asked.
Doolittle looked over at the corporal, surprised. It wasn’t like Boiler to show concern for anyone. He shrugged. “He just likes it up in the dome, that’s all. You know… astronomers.”
As if that were the final word on the subject, both he and Boiler became quiet. Doolittle finished off the last of the packet of ham and went to his final drops of mint tea. That was the best thing about the food computer, as far as he was concerned, and the best parts of their meals. With no effort, the computer could produce packets of any tea known to man—Darjeeling to Lipton. Sometimes the new flavors were all that kept Doolittle going.
If Doolittle had his teas, Boiler had his reconstituted cigars. Now he reached into a tunic pocket and extracted one of the long smokes. Pity their reconstructed food didn’t taste as good as the cigars smoked.
Lighting up, he took a couple of long, satisfied puffs. His brow wrinkled at a sudden thought.
“Hey, Talby—Talby who?” His confusion deepened, but he didn’t let it get to him. You couldn’t let anything get to you now or you were sure to go off the deep end. “What’s Talby’s first name?”
Doolittle looked up casually, started to say something, and suddenly appeared absorbed in an entirely different thought. A mild hint of worry crept into his voice.