So sharp was the dream that Joe tried to answer after he woke up. Then he looked for Kleuger in the mirror. Kleuger's face was much the same, but he knew with sick horror that the captain was dead. Nevertheless he tried to arouse him with the alarm. Presently he gave up; his fingers were purple and he could feel nothing below his waist; he wondered if be were dying and hoped that he was. He slipped into that lethargy which had become his normal state.
He did not become conscious when, after more than nine days, the autopilot quenched the torch. Awareness found him floating in midroom, having somehow squirmed out of his station. He felt deliciously lazy and quite hungry; the latter eventually brought him awake.
His surroundings put past events somewhat into place. He pulled himself to hii tank and examined the dials. Good grief!—it had been two hours since the ship had gone into free fall. The plan called for approach to be computed before the tape ran out, corrected on entering free fall, a new tape cut and fed in without delay, then let the autopilot make the approach. He had done nothing and wasted two hours.
He slid between tank and controls, discovering then that his legs were paralyzed. No matter—legs weren't needed in free fall, nor in the tank. His hands did not behave well, but he could use them. He was stunned when he found Kleuger's body, but steadied down and got to work. He had no idea where he was; Pluto might be millions of miles away, or almost in his lap—perhaps they had spotted him and were already sending approach data. He decided to check the wire.
He found their messages at once:
"Proserpina to Salamander—Thank God you are coming. Here are your elements at quench out—": followed by time reference, range-and-bearing figures, and doppler data.
And again: "Here are later and better figures, Salamander—hurry!"
And finally, only a few minutes ‘before: "Salamander, why the delay in light-off? Is your computer broken down? Shall we compute a ballistic for you?"
The idea that anyone but a torcher could work a torch ballistic did not sink in. He tried to work fast, but his hands bothered him—he punched wrong numbers and had to correct them. It took him a half hour to realize that the trouble was not just his fingers. Ballistics, a subject as easy for him as checkers, was confused in his mind.
He could not work the ballistic.
"Salamander to Proserpino—Request ballistic for approach into parking orbit around Pluto."
The answer came so quickly that he knew that they had not waited for his okay. With ponderous care he cut the tape and fed it into the autopilot. It was then that he noticed the boost... four point oh three.
Four gravities for the approach— He had assumed that the approach would be a normal one—and so it might have been if he had not wasted three hours. But it wasn't fair! It was too much to expect. He cursed childishly as he settled himself, fitted the collar, and squeezed the button that turned control to the autopilot. He had a few minutes of waiting time; he spent it muttering peevishly. They could have figured him a better ballistic—hell, he should have figured it. They were always pushing him around. Good old Joe, anybody's punching bag! That so-and-so Kleuger over there, grinning like a fool and leaving the work for him—if Kleuger hadn't been so confounded eager— Acceleration hit him and he blacked out.
When the shuttle came up to meet him, they found one man dead, one nearly dead, and the cargo of whole blood.
The supply ship brought pilots for the Salamander and fetched Appleby home. He stayed in sick bay until ordered to Luna for treatment; on being detached he reported to Berrio, escorted by the flight surgeon. The Commodore let him know brusquely that he had done a fine job, a damn' fine job! The interview ended and the surgeon helped Joe to stand; instead of leaving Joe said, "Uh, Commodore?"
"Yes, son?"
"Oh, there's one thing I don't understand, uh, what I don't understand is, uh, this: why do I have to go, uh, to the geriatrics clinic at Luna City? That's for old people, uh? That's what I've always understood—the way I understand it. Sir?"
The surgeon cut in, "I told you, Joe. They have the very best physiotherapy. We got special permission for you."
Joe looked perplexed. "Is that right, sir? I feel funny, going to an old folks', uh, hospital?"
"That's right, son."
Joe grinned sheepishly. "Okay, sir, uh, if you say so."
They started to leave. "Doctor—stay a moment. Messenger, help Mr. Appleby."
"Joe, can you make it?"
"Uh, sure! My legs are lots better—see?" He went out, leaning on the messenger.
Berrio said, "Doctor, tell me straight: will Joe get well?"
"No, sir."
"Will he get better?'
"Some, perhaps. Lunar gravity makes it easy to get the most out of what a man has left."
"But will his mind clear up?"
The doctor hesitated. "It's this way, sir. Heavy acceleration is a speeded-up aging process. Tissues break down, capillaries rupture, the heart does many times its proper work. And there is hypoxia, from failure to deliver enough oxygen to the brain."
The Commodore struck his desk an angry blow. The surgeon said gently, "Don't take it so hard, sir."
"Damn it, man—think of the way he was. Just a kid, all bounce and vinegar—now look at him! He's an old man-senile."
"Look at it this way," urged the surgeon, "you expended one man, but you saved two hundred and seventy."
"‘Expended one man'? If you mean Kleuger, he gets a medal and his wife gets a pension. That's the best, any of us can expect. I wasn't thinking of Kleuger."
"Neither was I," answered the surgeon.
Goldfish Bowl
On the horizon lay the immobile cloud which capped the incredible waterspouts known as the Pillars of Hawaii.
Captain Blake lowered his binoculars. "There they stand, gentlemen."
In addition to the naval personnel of the watch, the bridge of the hydrographic survey ship U. S. S. Mahan held two civilians; the captain's words were addressed to them. The elder and smaller of the pair peered intently through a spyglass he had borrowed from the quartermaster. "I can't make them out," he complained.
"Here—try my glasses, doctor," Blake suggested, passing over his binoculars. He turned to the officer of the deck and added, "Have the forward range finder manned, if you please, Mr. Mott." Lieutenant Mott caught the eye of the bos'n's mate of the watch, listening from a discreet distance, and jerked a thumb upward. The petty officer stepped to the microphone, piped a shrill stand-by, and the metallic voice of the loud-speaker filled the ship, drowning out the next words of the captain: "Raaaaange one! Maaaaaaaan and cast loose!"
"I asked," the captain repeated, "if that was any better."
"I think I see them," Jacobson Graves acknowledged. "Two dark vertical stripes, from the cloud to the horizon."
"That's it."
The other civilian, Bill Eisenberg, had taken the telescope when Graves had surrendered it for the binoculars. "I got 'em too," he announced. "There's nothing wrong with this 'scope, Doc. But they don't look as big as I had expected," he admitted.
"They are still beyond the horizon," Blake explained. "You see only the upper segments. But they stand just under eleven thousand feet from water line to cloud-if they are still running true to form."