Holt issued a squadron order that each crew member must pass not less than two hours in the gravity cells twice a week. Busy bees ferried the men in groups of four to the huge dumbbells, which they entered through the central chamber, a spacious metal drum, via bulkhead doors directly from the bees. From the central chamber the men descended to either of the great bells through air-impervious hoses one hundred feet long and three in diameter. The two diametrically opposed spheres, the hoses and the central chamberwere inflated by an air conditioning unit to a pressure of one atmosphere for respiration and to maintain the dumbbell's shape.
The four sometimes unwilling athletes distributed themselves into opposite gravity cells by seating themselves upon a board attached to a rope, one of whose ends was made fast in the central chamber while the other was rolled around a drum on the board. When a snubbing device was released, centrifugal force pulled the man on his board into the cell proper. To return to the central chamber, he would pull himself back by a handle attached to the drum.
Within the cells were a few simple gymnastic implements with which the men worked their unaccustomed muscles back to suppleness, accompanied by many a humorous curse and gripe at the now loathsome synthetic gravity.
When propulsion maneuvers were undertaken, the gravity cells were secured, as was Lussigny's radio set and Bergmann's telescope. This was done by allowing the internal pressure to escape, after which men in space suits folded the spheres and their connecting hoses and stowed them in the metallic drums of the central chambers. The chambers were then towed back to their cargo vessels.
Officially it was night and Holt was sleeping peacefully in the air of the living compartment of the Polaris. Two safety pins through the coat and trousers of his pajamas held him gently moored to a pair of cords which kept sleepers steady during the hours appointed for slumber. His dreams were rudely interrupted by a twitching of one of the cords. It was Tom Knight who had recently gone on watch.
"We've had two Maydays from Aldebaranl" shouted Knight, "No response to our acknowledgment!"
Holt ripped the safety pins out of his night clothing and swam with Knight into an astrodome from which Aldebaran was visible. Field glasses showed nothing abnormal.
She hung there about eight miles away, as she had for weeks, motionless and glistening against the velvet sky. Holt slipped into a uniform, snapping out commands as he did so.
"Waken Dr. Barrett and two Corpsmen. Clear away a busy bee with four space suits. Radio Ziolkowsky to send a power bee to Aldebaran. Same to Goddard. Radio Capella to send Wiegand and a damage control party to Aldebaran. I'm off with Barrett and the two Corpsmen."
A few minutes later, Holt and his party, already dressed in their space suits, entered the busy bee secured at Polaris' airlock and the forward tank retainer. Holt himself took the helm and swung out towards the motionless and apparently unaffected Aldebaran.
As they neared the vessel, his glasses revealed several figures moving outside the nacelle and apparently busy near the forward portion of the tankage system. Still no apparent damage was visible. Holt reversed his thrust so as to stop the bee some 200 feet off. Opening the hatch, he spoke into the microphone contained in his transparent space helmet.
"What's up, Sherman?"
One of the figures lifted an arm in acknowledgment and then, drawing his reaction pistol, projected himself in their direction. As he neared the bee, he reported via his individual radio set.
"We took a meteor through the nacelle just now. No personnel losses. Repairs are underway."
Holt drew him into the busy bee. He closed the hatch, pressurized the little cabin and they removed their helmets.
"Tell me about it, Sherman."
"We were hit by a meteor about one fourth of an inch in diameter through the forward wall of the control room, just alongside the bow astrodome. It passed through the captain's cubicle and through my laundry chest. Then it knocked a hole in the position chart in the navigating room and went on out through the sick bay aft. It cut the corner of one of the hydrazine tanks for the second maneuver, and I'm afraid we've lost some propellant. But the patch is just about on, and the loss is small."
"Were you aware of what happened?"
"Sergeant Bock was on duty in the control room and I was strapped down in my cubicle, reading. The thing missed Bock's head by a foot or so. The others were asleep.
All I heard was a bang in my laundry chest and then some smoke came out of it. There was a hissing sound, followed by the alarm horn. Then I knew we'd been hit. I ordered
Bock to send an SOS, although he was a little fuzzy from the shock wave of the meteor.
"When the nacelle pressure began to go down and the drop-out in the smoke producer gave us a clue to the location of the entrance and exit holes. We had hard rubber patches over them in about three minutes. The blower system went into automatic high delivery just as it is supposed to, although we lost about a half an atmosphere of pressure before the patches began to hold. Then the pressure climbed right back to the full one atmosphere.
The system worked beautifully. Made my ears snap, the pressure came back so fast."
"How about the hydrazine tank?" asked Holt.
"We didn't notice that in the excitement until Corporal Blacksmith went to make a check on whether any of his medical gear had suffered. He opened the port cover and took a look out at the tanks when he saw that the wake of the meteor might be near them. When he saw the hydrazine pouring out, we put on space suits and climbed out with patches."
"Do you think you've lost much?"
"I don't think it's a great deal. It was pouring out of the aftermost leak like a halfopened spigot. It began to spread over the skin of the tank because of its adhesive properties, and then evaporated rapidly in the vacuum. The forward leak just dribbled. Weightlessness is what saved us. I hope and believe that we didn't lose more than 50 gallons."
"Well, that's not as bad as it might have been," said Holt, "but why didn't you answer us after you sent the "Mayday"?
"Until we stopped the leaks in the nacelle, I didn't know how long we could maintain our pressure. It was dropping despite the emergency power on the blowers. So I ordered the crew into space suits and shut off the juice from everything except the blowers so that the batteries could keep them running at full power as long as possible. Our radio transmitter was shut off too. I believed it was vital to keep the pressure up at all costs, or else the nacelle might collapse when the batteries went dead. A collapse like that would play havoc with the entire installation. We reported as soon as the holes were plugged, but you'd gone. Colonel Knight took the message."
"You handled the situation very well, Sherman," said Holt. "Let's have a look at the damage while Dr. Barrett gives Sergeant Bock the once over."
They replaced their helmets, depressurized the interior of the bee and pushed themselves clear of the little vessel. With their reaction pistols they shoved themselves towards the silver nacelle of Aldebaran.
The holes made by the speeding meteor were insignificant. The edges of the punctures showed signs of carbonization due to its velocity. The hard rubber patches within the nacelle were still held tightly by the interior air pressure. Wiegand and his repair experts were already busy cementing them in place from the outside for permanence. The Aldebaran people had completed this detail on the hydrazine tank.