Short Stories by Robert A. Heinlein Vol 1 Part 2

He sat down and tried to strike a cigarette, but the tube broke in his fingers. He let the fragments fall to the floor, got up and took six nervous steps toward the window, as if he were being jerked along. He sank down to his knees, grasped the window and threw it wide open, then clung to the windowsill, his eyes tight shut.

After a time the sill seemed to steady a bit. He opened his eyes, gasped, and shut them again. Finally he opened them again, being very careful not to look out at the stars, not to look down at the street. He had half expected to find the cat on a balcony outside his room - it seemed the only reasonable explanation. But there was no balcony, no place at all where a cat could reasonably be.

However, the mewing was louder than ever. It seemed to come from directly under him. Slowly he forced his head out, still clinging to the sill, and made himself look down. Under him, about four feet lower than the edge of the window, a narrow ledge ran around the side of the building. Seated on it was a woe-begone ratty-looking kitten. It stared up at him and meowed again.

It was barely possible that, by clinging to the sill with one hand and making a long arm with the other, he could reach it without actually going out the window, he thought - if he could bring himself to do it. He considered calling Tully, then thought better of it. Tully was shorter than he was, had less reach. And the kitten had to be rescued now, before the fluff-brained idiot jumped or fell.

He tried for it. He shoved his shoulders out, clung with his left arm and reached down with his right. Then he opened his eyes and saw that he was a foot or ten inches away from the kitten still. It sniffed curiously in the direction of his hand.

He stretched till his bones cracked. The kitten promptly skittered away from his clutching fingers, stopping a good six feet down the ledge. There it settled down and commenced was.h.i.+ng its face.

He inched back inside and collapsed, sobbing, on the floor underneath the window. 'I can't do it,' he whispered. 'I can't do it. Not again -'

The Rocket s.h.i.+p Valkyrie was two hundred and forty-nine days out from Earth-Luna s.p.a.ce Terminal and approaching Mars Terminal on Deimos, outer Martian satellite. William Cole, Chief Communications Officer and relief pilot, was sleeping sweetly when his a.s.sistant shook him. 'Hey! Bill! Wake up - we're in a jam.'

'Huh? Wazzat?' But he was already reaching for his socks. 'What's the trouble, Tom?'

Fifteen minutes later he knew that his junior officer had not exaggerated; he was reporting the facts to the Old Man - the primary piloting radar was out of whack. Tom Sandburg had discovered it during a routine check, made as soon as Mars was inside the maximum range of the radar pilot. The captain had shrugged. 'Fix it, Mister - and be quick about it. We need it.'

Bill Cole shook his head. 'There's nothing wrong with it, Captain - inside. She acts as if the antenna were gone completely.'

'That's impossible. We haven't even had a meteor alarm.'

'Might be anything, Captain. Might be metal fatigue and it just fell off. But we've got to replace that antenna. Stop the spin on the s.h.i.+p and I'll go out and fix it. I can jury-rig a replacement while she loses her spin.'

The Valkyrie was a luxury s.h.i.+p, of her day. She was a.s.sembled long before anyone had any idea of how to produce an artificial gravity field. Nevertheless she had pseudogravity for the comfort of her pa.s.sengers. She spun endlessly around her main axis, like a sh.e.l.l from a rifled gun; the resulting angular acceleration - miscalled 'centrifugal force' - kept her pa.s.sengers firm in their beds, or steady on their feet. The spin was started as soon as her rockets stopped blasting at the beginning of a trip and was stopped only when it was necessary to maneuver into a landing. It was accomplished, not by magic, but by reaction against the contrary spin of a flywheel located on her centerline.

The captain looked annoyed. 'I've started to take the spin off, but I can't wait that long. Jury-rig the astrogational radar for piloting.'

Cole started to explain why the astrogational radar could not be adapted to short-range work, then decided not to try. 'It can't be done, sir. It's a technical impossibility.'

'When I was your age I could jury-rig anything! Well, find me an answer, Mister. I can't take this s.h.i.+p down blind. Not even for the Harriman Medal.'

Bill Cole hesitated for a moment before replying. 'I'll have to go out while she's still got spin on her, Captain, and make the replacement. There isn't any other way to do it.'

The captain looked away from him, his jaw muscles flexed. 'Get the replacement ready. Hurry up about it.'

Cole found the captain already at the airlock when he arrived with the gear he needed for the repair. To his surprise the Old Man was suited up. 'Explain to me what I'm to do,' he ordered Bill.

'You're not going out, sir?' The captain simply nodded.

Bill took a look at his captain's waist line, or where his waist line used to be. Why, the Old Man must be thirty-five if he was a day! 'I'm afraid I can't explain too clearly. I had expected to make the repair myself.'

'I've never asked a man to do a job I wouldn't do myself. Explain it to me.'

'Excuse me, sir - but can you chin yourself with one hand?'

'What's that got to do with it?'

'Well, we've got forty-eight pa.s.sengers, sir, and -' 'Shut up!'

Sandburg and he, both in s.p.a.ce suits, helped the Old Man down the hole after the inner door of the lock was closed and the air exhausted. The s.p.a.ce beyond the lock was a vast, starflecked emptiness. With spin still on the s.h.i.+p, every direction outward was 'down', down for millions of uncounted miles. They put a safety line on him, of course - nevertheless it gave him a sinking feeling to see the captain's head disappear in the bottomless, black hole.

The line paid out steadily for several feet, then stopped. When it had been stopped for several minutes, Bill leaned over and touched his helmet against Sandburg's. 'Hang on to my feet. I'm going to take a look.'

He hung head down out the lock and looked around. The captain was stopped, hanging by both hands, nowhere near the antenna fixture. He scrambled back up and reversed himself. 'I'm going out.'

It was no great trick, he found, to hang by his hands and swing himself along to where the captain was stalled. The Valkyrie was a s.p.a.ce-to-s.p.a.ce s.h.i.+p, not like the sleek-sided jobs we see around earthports; she was covered with handholds for the convenience of repairmen at the terminals. Once he reached him, it was possible, by grasping the safe steel rung that the captain clung to, to aid him in swinging back to the last one he had quitted. Five minutes later Sandburg was pulling the Old Man up through the hole and Bill was scrambling after him.

He began at once to unbuckle the repair gear from the captain's suit and transfer it to his own. He lowered himself back down the hole and was on his way before the older man had recovered enough to object, if he still intended to.

Swinging out to where the antenna must be replaced was not too hard, though he had all eternity under his toes. The suit impeded him a little - the gloves were clumsy - but he was used to s.p.a.cesuits. He was a little winded from helping the captain, but he could not stop to think about that. The increased spin bothered him somewhat; the airlock was nearer the axis of spin than was the antenna - he felt heavier as he moved out.

Getting the replacement antenna s.h.i.+pped was another matter. It was neither large nor heavy, but he found it impossible to fasten it into place. He needed one hand to cling by, one to hold the antenna, and one to handle the wrench. That left him shy one hand, no matter how he tried it.

Finally he jerked his safety line to signal Sandburg for more slack. Then he unshackled it from his waist, working with one hand, pa.s.sed the end twice through a handhold and knotted it; he left about six feet of it hanging free. The shackle on the free end he fastened to another handhold. The result was a loop, a bight, an improvised bosun's chair, which would support his weight while he man-handled the antenna into place. The job went fairly quickly then.

He was almost through. There remained one bolt to fasten on the far side, away from where he swung. The antenna was already secured at two points and its circuit connection made. He decided he could manage it with one hand. He left his perch and swung over, monkey fas.h.i.+on.

The wrench slipped as he finished tightening the bolt; it slipped from his grasp, fell free. He watched it go, out and out and out, down and down and down, until it was so small he could no longer see it. It made him dizzy to watch it, bright in the sunlight against the deep black of s.p.a.ce. He had been too busy to look down, up to now.

He s.h.i.+vered. 'Good thing I was through with it,' he said. 'It would be a long walk to fetch it.' He started to make his way back.

He found that he could not.

He had swung past the antenna to reach his present position, using a grip on his safety-line swing to give him a few inches more reach. Now the loop of line hung quietly, just out of reach. There was no way to reverse the process.

He hung by both hands and told himself not to get panicky - he must think his way out. Around the other side? No, the steel skin of the Valkyrie was smooth there - no handhold for more than six feet. Even if he were not tired - and he had to admit that he was, tired and getting a little cold - even if he were fresh, it was an impossible swing for anyone not a chimpanzee.

He looked down - and regretted it.

There was nothing below him but stars, down and down, endlessly. Stars, swinging past as the s.h.i.+p spun with him, emptiness of all time and blackness and cold.

He found himself trying to hoist himself bodily onto the single narrow rung he clung to, trying to reach it with his toes. It was a futile, strength-wasting excess. He quieted his panic sufficiently to stop it, then hung limp.

It was easier if he kept his eyes closed. But after a while he always had to open them and look. The Big Dipper would swing past and then, presently, Orion. He tried to compute the pa.s.sing minutes in terms of the number of rotations the s.h.i.+p made, but his mind would not work clearly, and, after a while, he would have to shut his eyes.

His hands were becoming stiff - and cold. He tried to rest them by hanging by one hand at a time. He let go with his left hand, felt pins-and-needles course through it, and beat it against his side. Presently it seemed time to spell his right hand.

He could no longer reach up to the rung with his left hand. He did not have the power left in him to make the extra pull; he was fully extended and could not shorten himself enough to get his left hand up.

He could no longer feel his right hand at all.

He could see it slip. It was slipping - The sudden release in tension let him know that he was falling falling. The s.h.i.+p dropped away from him.

He came to with the captain bending over him. 'Just keep quiet, Bill.'

'Where -,