It wouldn't bear thinking of and neither Joe nor I talked about it, but it didn't make Joe's disposition sweeter and, let's face it, it didn't make me any happier.
Earth hung over 200,000 kilometers below us, but Joe wasn't bothered by that. He was concentrating on his tether and checking the cartridge in his reaction-gun. He wanted to make sure he could get to Computer-Two and back again.
You'd been surprised-if you've never tried it-how you can get your space-legs if you absolutely have to. I wouldn't say there was nothing to it and we did waste half the fuel we used, but we finally reached Computer-Two. We hardly made any bump at all, when we struck Computer-Two. (You hear it, of course, even in vacuum, because the vibration travels through the metalloid fabric of your spacesuits-but there was hardly any bump, just a whisper.)
Of course, our contact and the addition of our momentum, altered the orbit of ComputerTwo slightly, but tiny expenditures of fuel compensated for that and we didn't have to worry about it. Computer-Two took care of it, for nothing had gone wrong with it, as far as we could tell, that affected any of its external workings.
We went over the outside first, naturally. The chances were pretty overwhelming that a small piece of gravel had whizzed through ComputerTwo and left an unmistakable hole. Two of them in all probability; one going in and one coming out.
The chances of that happening are one in two million on any given day-even money that it will happen at least once in six thousand years. It's not likely, but it can, you know. The chances are one in not more than ten billion that, on any one day, it will be struck by a meteoroid large enough to demolish it.
I didn't mention that because Joe might realize that we were exposed to similar odds ourselves. In fact, any given strike on us would do far more damage to our soft and tender bodies than to the stoical and much-enduring machinery of the computer, and I didn't want Joe more nervous than he was.
The thing is, though, it wasn't a meteoroid.
"What's this?" said Joe, finally.
It was a small cylinder stuck to the outer wall of Computer-Two, the first abnormality we had found in its outward appearance. It was about half a centimeter in diameter and perhaps six centimeters long. Just about cigarette-size for any of you who've been caught up in the antique fad of smoking.
We brought out our small flashlights.
I said, "That's not one of the external components."
"It sure isn't," muttered Joe.
There was a faint spiral marking running round the cylinder from one end to the other. Nothing else. For the rest, it was clearly metal, but of an odd, grainy texture-at least to the eye.
Joe said, "It's not tight."
He touched it gently with a fat and gauntleted finger and it gave. Where it had made contact with the surface of Computer-Two it lifted, and our flashes shone down on a visible gap.
"There's the reason gas pressure inside declined to zero," I said.
Joe grunted. He pushed a little harder and the cylinder popped away and began to drift. We managed to snare it after a little trouble. Left behind was a perfectly round hole in the skin of Computer-Two, half a centimeter across.
Joe said, "This thing, whatever it is, isn't much more than foil."
It gave easily under his fingers, thin but springy. A little extra pressure and it dented. He put it inside his pouch, which he snapped shut and said, "Go over the outside and see if there are any other items like that on it. I'll go inside."
It didn't take me very long. Then I went in. "It's clean," I said. "That's the only thing there is. The only hole."
"One is enough," said Joe, gloomily. He looked at the smooth aluminum of the wall and, in the light of the flash, the perfect circle of black was beautifully evident.
It wasn't difficult to place a seal over the hole. It was a little more difficult to reconstitute the atmosphere. Computer-Two's reserve gas-forming supplies were low and the controls required manual adjustment. The solar generator was limping but we managed to get the lights on.
Eventually, we removed our gauntlets and helmet, but Joe carefully placed the gauntlets inside his helmet and secured them both to one of his suit-loops.
"I want these handy if the air-pressure begins to drop," he said, sourly.
So I did the same.
There was a mark on the wall just next to the hole. I had noted in the light of my flash when I was adjusting the seal. When the lights came on, it was obvious.
"You notice that, Joe?" I said.
"I notice."
There was a slight, narrow depression in the wall, not very noticeable at all, but there beyond a doubt if you ran your finger over it. It could be noticed for nearly a meter. It was as though someone had scooped out a very shallow sampling of the metal so that the surface was distinctly less smooth than elsewhere.
I said, "We'd better call Computer-Central downstairs."
"If you mean back on Earth, say so," said Joe. "I hate the phony space-talk. In fact, I hate everything about space. That's why I took an Earth-side job-I mean a job on Earth-or what was supposed to be one."
I said patiently, "We'd better call Computer Central back on Earth."
"Oddly enough, I do. And what caused the hole? It wasn't a meteoroid. I never saw one that would leave a perfectly circular hole with no signs of buckling or melting. And I never saw one that left a cylinder behind." He took the cylinder out of his suit pocket and smoothed the dent out of its thin metal, thoughtfully. "Well, what caused the hole?"
I didn't hesitate. I said, "I don't know."