“Very nice,” said McNary. “Good timing. I’ll keep mine low too. No sense cluttering the orbits up here with any more junk.” Carefully McNary leaned back, leaned forward, and threw. The second cylinder followed the first, and McNary kept his footing.
Without speaking Kaufman went through the preliminaries and launched his cylinder. Morgan and McNary watched it speed into the distance. “Shooting stars on Earth tonight,” said McNary.
“Quick! I’m off.” It was Kaufman.
Morgan and McNary turned to see Kaufman floating several feet above the satellite, and slowly receding. Morgan stepped toward him and scooped up the telephone wire that ran to Kaufman’s helmet. Kaufman swung an arm in a circle so that it became entangled in the wire. Morgan carefully drew the wire taut and checked Kaufman’s outward motion. Gently, so as not to snap the wire, he slowly reeled him in. McNary grasped Kaufman’s shoulders and turned him so that his feet touched the metal shell of the satellite.
McNary chuckled and said, “Why didn’t you ride an oxygen cylinder down?”
Kaufman grunted and said, “Oh, sure. I’ll leave that to the idiots in the movies; that’s the only place a man can ride a cylinder in space.” He turned to Morgan. “Thanks. Do as much for you some day.”
“Hope you don’t have to,” Morgan answered. “Look, any throwing to be done, you better leave it to Mac and me. We can’t be fishing anyone back if things get hot.”
“Right,” said Kaufman. “I’ll do what I can to fend off anything they throw at us.” He sniffed. “Be simpler if we have a collision.”
Morgan was staring to the left. He lifted a hand and pointed. “That it?”
The others squinted in that direction. After a moment they saw the spot of light moving swiftly up and across the black backdrop of the naked sky. “Must be,” said Kaufman. “Right time, right place. Must be.”
Morgan promptly turned his back on the sun and closed his eyes; he would need his best vision shortly now, and he wanted his pupils dilated as much as possible. “Make anything out yet?” he said.
“No. Little brighter.”
Morgan stood without moving. He could feel the heat on his back as his suit seized the radiant energy from the sun and converted it to heat. He grew warm at the back, yet his front remained cold. The sensation was familiar, and Morgan sought to place it. Yes, that was it—a fireplace. He felt as does a man who stands in a cold room with his back toward a roaring fire. One side toasted, the other side frigid. Funny, the homey sensations, even here.
“Damn face plate.” It was Kaufman. He had scraped the front of his helmet against the outside hatch a week ago. Since then the scratches distracted him every time he wore the helmet.
Morgan waited, and the exultation seethed and bubbled and fumed. “Anything?” he said.
“It’s brighter,” said McNary. “But—wait a minute, I can make it out. They’re outside, the three of them. I can just see them.”
It was time. Morgan turned to face the approaching satellite. He raised a hand to shield his face plate from the sun and carefully opened his eyes. He shifted his hand into the proper position and studied the other satellite.
It was like their own, even to the three men standing on it, except that the three were spaced farther apart.
“Any sign of a rifle or gun?” asked McNary.
“Not that I see,” said Morgan. “They’re not close enough to tell.”
He watched the other satellite grow larger and he tried to judge its course, but it was too far away. Although his eyes were on the satellite, his side vision noted the bright-lit Earth below and the stars beyond. A small part of his mind was amused by his own stubborn egocentricity. Knowing well that he was moving and moving fast, he still felt that he stood motionless while the rest of the universe revolved around him. The great globe seemed to be majestically turning under his rooted feet. The harsh brilliances that were the stars seemed to sweep by overhead. And that oncoming satellite, it seemed not to move so much as merely swell in size as he watched.
One of the tiny figures on the other satellite shifted its position toward the others. Sensitive to the smallest detail, Morgan said, “He didn’t clear a line when he walked. No telephone. They’re on radio. See if we can find the frequency. Mac, take the low. Shorty, the medium. I’ll take the high.”
Morgan reached to his helmet and began turning the channel selector, hunting for the frequency the Russians were using. Kaufman found it. He said, “Got it, I think. One twenty-eight point nine.”
Morgan set his selector, heard nothing at first. Then hard in his ear burst an unintelligible sentence with the characteristic fruity diphthongs of Russian. “I think that’s it,” he said.
He watched, and the satellite increased in size. “No rifle or any other weapon that I see,” said Morgan. “But they are carrying a lot of extra oxygen bottles.”
Kaufman grunted. McNary asked, “Can you tell if it’s a collision course yet? I can’t.”
Morgan stared at the satellite through narrowed eyes, frowning in concentration. “I think not. I think it’ll cross our bow twenty or thirty feet out; close but no collision.”
McNary’s breath sounded loud in the helmet. “Good. Then we’ve nothing but the men to worry about. I wonder how those boys pitch.”
Another burst of Russian came over the radio, and with it Morgan felt himself slip into the relaxed state he knew so well. No longer was the anticipation rising. He was ready now, in a state of calm, a deadly and efficient calm—ready for the test. This was how it always was with him when the time came, and the time was now.
Morgan watched as the other satellite approached. His feet were apart and his head turned sideways over his left shoulder. At a thousand yards, he heard a mutter in Russian and saw the man at the stern start moving rapidly toward the bow. His steps were long. Too long.
Morgan saw the gap appear between the man and the surface of the other ship, saw the legs kicking in a futile attempt to establish contact again. The radio was alive with quick, short sentences, and the two men turned and began to work their way swiftly toward the bit of human jetsam that floated near them.
“I’ll be damned,” said Kaufman. “They’ll never make it.”
Morgan had seen that this was true. The gap between floating man and ship widened faster than the gap between men and floating man diminished. Without conscious thought or plan, Morgan leaned forward and pulled the jack on the telephone line from McNary’s helmet. He leaned back and did the same to Kaufman, straightened and removed his own. He threw a quick knot and gathered the line, forming a coil in his left hand and one in his right, and leaving a large loop floating near the ship in front of him. He stepped forward to clear Kaufman, and twisted his body far around to the right. There he waited, eyes fixed on the other satellite. He crouched slightly and began to lean forward, far forward. At the proper moment he snapped both his arms around to throw the line, the left hand throwing high, the right low. All his sailor’s skill went into that heave. As the other satellite swept past, the line flew true to meet it. The floating man saw it coming and grabbed it and wrapped it around his hand and shouted into the radio. The call was not needed; the lower portion of the line struck one of the walking men. He turned and pulled the line into his arms and hauled it tight. The satellite was barely past when the bit of human jetsam was returning to its metallic haven. The two men became three again, and they turned to face the American satellite. As one man the three raised both arms and waved. Still without thinking, Morgan found himself raising an arm with Kaufman and McNary and waving back.