Robert Silverberg: Three Survived

“Answer me,” Rand said. “This is Captain Rand speaking. I’m giving you a direct order: feed me that orbit at once.”

Silence.

“Do you hear me?”

More silence.

“I think the big brain’s in trouble,” Dombey said. “It oughta be talking to you, boss. Why ain’t it answering?”

Rand didn’t say anything. Suddenly he felt the air in the lifeship cabin growing warm. He could hear the air conditioners working hard to keep the temperature down. He began to realize what must have happened.

He switched on the rear viewscreen.

The screen lit up and flickered wavily for a moment. Then the image focused. Against the blackness of space there was a sprinkling of tiny bright stars. And in the foreground blazed a brand new star that wasn’t listed in any of the star catalogs.

It wasn’t a star. It was what had been the Clyde F. Bohmer.

“Take a look at the ship,” Rand said. He pointed toward the rear screen.

“Where?” Leswick said. “I don’t see any ship.”

“It’s that bright star right in front. That’s what happens when a spaceship’s fuel storage chambers explode. There’s nothing left of that ship but atoms.”

Leswick shuddered. “We got away just in time!”

As they watched, the fiery glow dimmed and faded. In a minute or two the explosion was over and nothing could be seen. The air in the cabin was cool again.

“The computer is gone too, of course,” Rand said. “It can’t work out an orbit now. We’re completely on our own,”

“Can you land the ship yourself?” Leswick asked.

Rand shrugged. “I can try.”

Trying to land a ship without a computer’s help was a tough assignment. The problem was that both you and the place where you wanted to land were in motion. You had to aim your ship at the place where the planet was going to be when you planned to get there.

It was something like firing a gun at a moving target. It’s important to allow for the ground your target will cover before the bullet reaches it.

Of course, it’s a much harder trick to aim a spaceship at a planet than to aim a rifle at a rabbit. Even a little lifeship like this one could reach pretty fantastic speeds. Just a tiny error in the calculations, and Rand would fail to connect with the planet. He might miss it and go right on past.

A different kind of error in the calculations and he’d be traveling too fast when landing time came. The lifeship might slam into the planet at high speed and crack up. A ship in space is different from a rifle bullet, that way. It doesn’t matter how fast the bullet is going, as long as it gets to the right place at the right time. But a spaceship has to slow its speed down to zero miles per hour when it lands. Otherwise—look out!

Rand found some chart paper on a shelf in the lifeship. He also found a little pocket computer. It wasn’t much more than a sort of adding machine, but he needed all the help he could get.

He grabbed a pencil and started to write down some numbers.

“Hand me that chartbook,” Rand said. “Let’s see if I can find out anything useful.”

The lifeship’s chartbook was a bulky volume that gave information about all the planets that human beings had ever explored. Rand hunted for the star numbered GGC 8788845 and found it quickly. There wasn’t much information there—but it would have to be enough.

The chartbook said that star GGC 8788845 was about the same size and astronomical type as Earth’s own sun. Good. It wouldn’t have been pleasant to have to land on a planet of a dwarf star, where the temperature would be close to absolute zero. Or to land on a planet of one of the hot blue-white stars, where they might get fried instantly.

GGC 8788845 had three planets. The middle one was the one that had the rescue beacon. The chartbook said that it was an Earth-type world with an atmosphere that human beings could breathe. That was another headache they would avoid. They wouldn’t need to bundle up in spacesuits while they searched for the rescue beacon.

Rand got to work.

It was terribly quiet in the lifeship cabin. The only sound was the scratching of Rand’s pencil as it moved rapidly across the chart paper. Leswick and Dombey were silent, but they looked over Rand’s shoulders, trying to see what he was doing.

Neither of them had any idea of what was going on, of course. They could never have begun to land the lifeship without him, Rand knew.

The orbit took shape. Rand’s instruments told him how far it was from the lifeship’s present position to the planet with the rescue beacon. He already knew how fast the lifeship was able to travel. What he needed to figure out was the speed that the planet was going in its own orbit.

Once he knew that, he could work out an orbit for the lifeship that would match the planet’s orbit. He would bring the lifeship closer and closer to the planet, until ship and planet were traveling in the same orbit. Then he’d make rendezvous and land—if his luck held out.

The chartbook gave him some figures about the planet’s orbit. He was able to calculate the rest. He made plenty of mistakes as he worked. Soon the chart paper was blurred and smeared and messy from all the erasing he was doing.

But Rand’s confidence was growing. He felt sure that the orbit he was working out was a good one, and would get them safely down.

“Okay,” Rand said finally, a long while later. The lifeship had been moving in a big circle through space while he was working. Now he checked out his figures one last time. “We can start our landing approach,” he announced.

The lifeship’s engine controls were like the keyboard of a typewriter. Rand let his fingers rest lightly on the keys while he looked over the instruction panel. At last he felt ready to begin. He started to tap out his orders.

“Hand me that chartbook again,” Rand said. “While we’re heading for the planet, maybe I can figure out where that rescue beacon is.”

The chartbook told him that Earthmen had visited this planet only once—fifty years before. An Exploration Corps team had stopped off there for a quick visit. They had collected information about the three worlds of the star GGC 8788845. They had also taken the time to set up a rescue beacon on one of those worlds.

The Exploration Corps was trying to set up rescue beacons all through the galaxy. That way, space-wrecked travelers anywhere would have a chance of calling for help.

Rand was gambling that the beacon would still be there after fifty years, and that it would still work right. But he didn’t really have much choice.

The lifeship wasn’t stocked with fuel for a long voyage. The planet ahead was just about the only one it could have reached.

Let’s see, now, Rand thought. The beacon is on the big continent north of the equator and—

Leswick said, “Tell me, does this planet have a name?”

“It’s called Tuesday,” Rand said, and went on making calculations.

“Tuesday? What a strange name!”

“I didn’t name it,” Rand muttered.

“But why would anyone call a planet Tuesday?”

Rand looked up, annoyed. “It’s Exploration Corps rules that every planet has to be named by the survey team that visits it. At first they named the planets for famous men or for cities or countries. That’s how we got planets named Kennedy and Columbus and New Shanghai.”

“Yes, but—”

“Let me finish, as long as you asked. There are billions of stars, and most of those stars have planets in orbit around them. All the famous names were used up long ago. So now we get planets named Fred and Joe and Sam. There’s a planet named Death, and one named Hothouse, and one called Lambchop.”