The Trouble with Telstar Page 7

and went back to my work.

  * * * * *

  The one thing I had nothing of was any kind of insulating material.With my screwdriver I hacked a piece loose from the double-facedsticky-tape I had used to keep loose parts from flying around, andteased it under the wire with my tweezers. Perhaps I could have doneas well by heating the wire and bending it straight, but there waslittle room, and I was afraid of melting a solder joint. So I took mytime teasing the tape through and finally got it to act as aninsulator without breaking the wire. How long it would stay there wasanybody's guess. It was held mechanically as well as by its stickyaction, but when the bird cooled off enough, the sticky effect wouldlessen. I hoped the pressure between the wire and the gate could beenough to keep it in place. Certainly no forces would be acting tomove it.

  Just as I had figured, the reassembly was the tedious part. I had tomove around into about sixteen screwy positions to do all the fixing.Finally it was back in one piece and I swung the gate closed.

  When the final 4-40's were run up as tight as they were supposed to berun, I reported to Paul Cleary. "Try her," I suggested. "I think Ifound the trouble. No point my coming back down if it doesn't work."

  They made me sweat it out for about ten minutes before Paul said,"Runs like a watch, Mike. Put the spin back on her, boy." At least hewas quiet about his solenoid.

  This called for the second rocket canister, which I hooked on to thegirdle and, after thinking it out carefully, got headed in the rightdirection. I eased away with finger pressure, and let the delayed fusedo the firing. Telstar started her slow spin again.

  Getting the girdle off was a lot harder than getting it on, somethingwe hadn't figured on, and in the final stages of the job I found thatmy steering motors no longer fired.

  "Sid!"

  "Roger, Mike."

  "How much fuel do you read in my steering jets?"

  "You've been out of fuel for about five minutes, by my gauge. Butdon't worry about it," Sid said. "I'll nurse _Nelly_ over there withmy steering jets and pick you up."

  "O.K.," I said doubtfully. "But watch it. Bump this bird and we'llhave it all to do over again."

  Sid had more trouble than he had figured. He had steering jets to runhim in every direction except fore and aft. For that motion theretro-rockets were considered enough. But one belch out of them wasenough to get me screaming into the mike: "Cut those retros!" Iyelled, the volume making my earphones crack, as it undoubtedly didhis.

  "Roger. What's wrong?"

  "You'll burn the solar generators right off the bird, you fool!Steering jets, do you hear, steering jets!"

  "Roger."

  But it was not that easy. Finally Sid got _Nelly_ within about twentyfeet, and pretty near at zero relative velocity.

  "All right, Sid," I said. "Hold it there. I'll push over."

  A gentle shove against the side of Telstar was all it took. I got itstraight, which was all that counted. My drift was slow, and I was agood five minutes making the twenty-foot crossing. But a handhold camewithin reach, and I worked my way back into the cabin and climbed inwithout shutting the hatch.

  "Don't try that again," I cautioned him. "This thing weighs tenthousand pounds, and that bird half as much. Even at a couple feet asecond, you can crush me to jelly between them, even if you don't burnone or the other of us to a crisp."

  "Roger," Sid said, not quite so emotionlessly. "Are we ready to move?"

  "What for?" I asked him. "Until we get me some steering fuel, I'museless."

  "I thought we'd abort this mission before we were through," hesneered.

  "Not so fast. You've got the same rig on your suit. All we have to dois put your fuel tanks on my suit."

  "Are you nuts?" he demanded.

  "What's the matter with it? Those tanks aren't welded to you, and I'vegot tools."

  I could see him shake his head in the dim light from the instrumentpanel. "You know those fuels ignite on contact with each other," hepointed out. "If we spill a couple drops of each in here, and theyvaporize, we'll blow this kite to pieces!"

  "Then we'll get outside to make the switch," I insisted. "It won'thurt anything if a few grams burn up out there, will it, with nothingto confine the expansion."

  "But then I won't be able to come after you if anything goes wrong,"he pointed out. "No dice."

  "You're grasping, Stein," I growled. "At this stage I'm in chargearound here. I'll take my chances on getting back."

  * * * * *

  With the cabin light on I went as far as possible in dismounting bothour tanks. After a couple rehearsals to make sure that at least one ofus would always have a glove on a handhold, we both climbed out thehatch and I made the switch. Just as Sid suspected, we spilled a fewdrops. They vaporized, and again as we had feared, combined in whatwould have been an explosion in a confined space. The soundless flash,dim but real, said we had released quite a little energy uniformly allaround us. I never felt a thing except a faint warmth from infraredthrough my helmet.

  Best of all, my jets worked. We both climbed back aboard _Nelly_,dogged the hatch, and started after Telstar Two.

  The second bird was about fifteen thousand miles ahead of us. I sleptmost of the time, for after Sid gave us a jolt of added velocity, wehad to settle down to about six hours of drifting. I woke up as thebelt cut me when he fired the retros. We went through the radar andsearchlight bit, and had the devil's own time finding our bird. But atlast I got the flash of reflection and went to work.

  I won't say the second job was any easier, except for the fact that Iremoved only one part to make room to do my bit with the insulation,and thus had very few screws to replace. My navigating in space was alot better, and I didn't use steering fuel as wastefully as the firsttime. Still, when we dogged down to chase after the final bird, thecabin gauge said that I had less than half my load of steering fuelleft. Equally glum, _Nelly_ herself was even lower on steering fuel.Neither Sid nor I had been as expert as we were supposed to be.

  Nevertheless, we took off after the third bird, and found itglistening in bright sunlight without the help of the searchlight. Ithought that was a good omen. But from there on nothing seemed to workright.

  We had been aloft about thirty-six hours, and fatigue was setting in.I was clumsy on the steering and had quite a time making contact.

  The repair went according to Hoyle, but after I had put the spin backon the bird I found that I had no more steering fuel. I hung about tenor fifteen feet from Telstar Three and maybe eighty feet from _Nelly_,drifting slowly from both.

  "Sid!"

  "Roger, Mike."

  "This one will have to make it with the girdle on."

  "Can't you get it off?"

  "I can't get back to it. Steering fuel gone."

  "Oh, no!"

  "No sweat, Sid. It occludes a small share of the solar generators, butnot enough to hurt anything."

  "That's not what I meant," he said quietly into my ear. "_Nelly's_ outof steering fuel, too. I can't pick you up!"

  I gulped on that one.

  "Canaveral Control!" I heard him call.

  "Cut that out," I said. "They can't help. Shut up and let me think."

  But he didn't, and I couldn't. I had no fuel with which to move. Sidhad only the retros and stern rockets, no good for swinging orturning. I was out of touching range of the bird, and couldn't shoveagainst it to build up a little drift. Just as Sylvia said, it's notlike swimming back to shore.

  There was a lot of excited chatter in my earphones, in which I did notparticipate. Nobody made any sense, and Sid shut the thing down.

  "Mike!"

  "Yeah." Disgusted.

  "Whatever you dope out, make it quick. You don't have all the air inthe world." Sid warned me.

  "How much?"

  "Ten minutes or so."

  "All right," I said. "It ought to be enough. Keep your eye on me. Youmay have to reach out an arm or leg for me to grab as I go by."

 
"How are you going to move?"

  "I've got a lifesaver," I said.

  * * * * *

  I writhed and squirmed and made every use of the law of conservationof angular momentum until I had my back to _Nelly_. Then I wound upand threw my fancy screwdriver as hard as I could heave it away fromme. I didn't get the zip on it I would have liked, but because it wassort of like a throwing stick, I got a little more on it than youmight expect, maybe fifty or sixty feet a second. And the thingweighed about four