II
Glass 5 showed that the forepeak and secondary chamber had been ripped
open. Glass 5 also showed that bulkhead doors there had automatically
closed. For the rest, excluding the motors, everything seemed in order.
The oxygen suppliers were functioning smoothly on auxiliary batteries.
Likewise the heat units, one for each level, showed normal operation.
All lights were lit.
Standish glanced out the port. Whatever the ship had struck, it was out
of his vision range now. Propelled by the forward surge of the dying
motors, the ship must have advanced a great distance since the fatal
crash.
Now the ship was drifting. Drifting without steerageway.
"Derelict," Standish said slowly. "It looks like I've got a one-way
ticket to eternity."
He took the elevator down to the lower level again and made his way
along the grating to the engine room. Carefully he examined the six
ato-turbines with an experienced eye.
Standish had grown up with atomic motors. He had served an
apprenticeship at his father's solar plant at Sun City, and he had
graduated from the New York School of Technology. As a boy of sixteen,
he had built his first minature atom smasher during vacation days.
Now he moved along the narrow catwalk between the motors, touching a
wire here, an armature there. The two port engines, he found, were
wrecked completely. Likewise the two starboard. Two forward machines
remained, and of these he saw one had an inch-wide crack in its
combustion chamber. But the other....
Standish drew in a breath of satisfaction. The last motor was disabled
but not beyond repair. Without further ado, he peeled off his coat,
seized a Stillson wrench and fell to work.
It took him a long time, and the task drew his mind away from the
horror about him. With the patience of long experience, Standish made
his repairs. At length it was completed, and he paused with bated
breath while he pressed the starting button.
The motor began, sluggishly at first, then faster and faster. Presently
it was droning evenly as if nothing had almost wrecked it earlier.
"One motor isn't much," he told himself. "But it may be enough."
For the third time he returned to the control room. There, triumph
met his gaze. The master indicator showed a definite forward movement
through space. The crippled ship was moving, though slowly.
Standish turned his attention next to the visiscreens and emergency
radio with which the liner had kept in contact with Earth and Sirius.
Neither the transmitting nor the receiving sets showed any response
when he turned on the control switch. A glance back of the panels
showed shattered tubes and broken apparatus.
He went out on the deck and climbed to the pilot cuddy. One look
through the three-directional glassite shield told a grim story. But it
was a full minute before the significance of it all probed into him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account