Two and a half hours later the meter showed the signal strength of the globe to be falling off slightly. He lit a cigarette, took another look at the operating instructions and grunted. Then he pressed a key on the activator, and waited.
Nearly a thousand miles away in space the 2½-foot-diameter steel globe revolved slowly as it drifted in a leisurely way upon the orbit into which it had fallen. To all appearance it was as inert as any other fragment of flotsam in the void. Then gradually, almost imperceptibly at first, its revolution began to slow. In a few minutes it was revolving clumsily like a ball with its weight out of true. Another five minutes and it failed to complete a revolution, it paused as though just short of top dead centre, swung back, oscillated gently awhile and then came to rest.
Back on the Madge G., the radio operator called up the navigator who did some quick figuring. Out in space the globe swung a little in response to the calculations. The radio operator pressed another key. An observer, had there been one close to the globe, would have seen little jets of flame spurt from that side of it distant from the Madge G. as the relays went in. Simultaneously he would have watched it break from its orbit and scud away on a course calculated to intersect with that of the ship far out of sight.
The radio operator informed the Captain that the globe was on its way. The Captain joined him, and together they bent over the signal-meter.
“What did you give?” asked Captain Troyte.
“Five seconds on low power, sir,” the operator told him.
The strength of reception according to the needle was almost constant.
“H'm. Our own speed, near as damn it,” said the Captain after a few minutes. “Better give it the same again.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
The operator pressed his key once more. Far away in the shining steel ball the relays clicked as before. Fuel was injected into the miniature combustion chambers and ignited. Little daggers of flame stabbed out into the darkness behind the gtobe, and it thrust forward on its way at twice its former speed.
“That'll do,” the Captain said. “You've no idea of its distance yet?”
“Impossible to tell, sir. If the batteries are strong it may be a long way off. If they're down at all it may be only a hundred miles or so away. No way of knowing, sir.”
“All right. Tell your relief to keep a check on it, and I'll have the navigator set a watch for it. If it is a long way off it may be a number of hours before we spot it?”
“Yes, sir.”
The Madge G. continued uninterrupted in her fall towards Jupiter. The operator after further consultation with the navigator corrected the globe's course slightly in compensation for the increased speed. Again there was nothing to do but wait while somewhere outside in the blackness of space the little globe tore through the emptiness on a course designed to bring it to a rendezvous with the ship at a point far ahead.
“Better read up on this,” said the operator, throwing the instruction book to his relieving operator. “You may have to fish it in.”
The relief looked at the book.
“Oh God. Just my bloody luck. Might have known it when I skipped the lecture on the things,” he said, gloomily.
Five hours later his telephone rang.
“Think we've spotted it, Bill,” said the voice of the assistant-navigator. “Hold on. Let you know in a minute or two.”
He came through again in under the two minutes.
“No doubt about it now. Couldn't be sure before because the way it lies you can only see a crescent of it. It's coming in a few points from dead astern, making a fairly acute angle with our own course. Keep your box of tricks handy, and hold on here.”
The radio operator arranged the remote control set in front of him and waited, telephone in hand.
“Coming up,” said the assistant navigator's voice. “Coming along nicely.” He paused. “Overhauling us fast. About three miles or so off I reckon. Doesn't seem to be converging much ... Hang it, it isn't converging at alclass="underline" it's diverging. Must have pretty well crossed our course behind us. Better bring it over a bit, Bill. Give it a touch on the port tubes. Just a touch, gently as you can ... God, man, call that a touch? It leapt like a frightened kangeroo. Stand by to correct with starboard tubes. She's coming ... coming ... Blast, she's out of the field of this instrument — half a minute ... Yes, there she is swinging right across, and ahead of us now. Correct when I tell you ... ready ... ready... now!”
Through the instrument he caught the little flutter of fire to the right of the sphere as the radio-operator obeyed.
“Okay,” he said, “direction good. Travelling dead ahead of us. Only diverging slightly, but she's running away. Get ready to brake her. Better try three seconds on low power ... No, she's still pulling ahead ... Give another two seconds ... No, damn it, that's too much: we'll overrun her. One second low power acceleration ... That's better: that's much better. Now the least possible touch on her starboard tubes, again. And gently this time...”
The jockeying went on for quite a while. Gradually by correction, recorrection and correction again the globe was juggled closer and closer until ship and globe were falling through space together with only a few hundred feet between them. Again the globe was steadied, and once more orientated towards the ship. The operator gave the lightest touch he could on the main tubes, and almost immediately braked her again.
“Great work, Bill,” approved the assistant-navigator. “She's still moving, coming in nicely. Stand by for magnets ... I'll tell you when ... ready... now!”
The operator pressed another key. A moment later there was a clang which rang through the Madge G., as if she had been hit with a sledge hammer.
“Whew,” said the radio operator as he wiped his brow and started to search for his cigarette case.
Outside, as the current flowed into the magnets, the drifting globe had swerved in one last wild pounce at the ship, find now clung there like a limpet.
Two space-suited-clad figures emerged from the port and walked along the side of the ship on their magnetic soles. Reaching the globe, they slid it back along the metal hull and into the air lock. It was trundled in on the main deck, and a hand threw an electric blanket over it to even up the temperature before they went to work on it.
An hour later Captain Troyte received the bunch of papers taken from the message compartment of the globe. He read them through with some surprise and incredulity. Then he picked up the telephone and spoke to the navigator.
“Where's Pomona Negra?” he inquired.
“Where's what, sir?”
“Pomona Negra. I gather it's an asteroid.”
“I'll ring you back, sir.”
The navigator came back through with his information a few minutes later after consulting his tables.
“Pretty nearly at the other side of its orbit now, sir.”
“Other side of the sun, in fact?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, that lets us out,” said the Captain, gratefully. He sent the papers over to the radio operator with instructions to transmit to Chapman Station, Mars, in their entirety.
“Gawd,” said the operator. “All that lot! Pity we ever hooked that perishing globe.”