Judith Merril - The Year's Greatest Science Fiction & Fantasy 4

Ted Thomas has a faculty for imagining life in space with such sharp realism that you can almost see and feel and taste it as you read. Here he tells the story of an embattled, proud and lonely man, a wanderer and a fighter, who must make a split-second decision for or against the community of mankind.

The three men bent over the chart and once again computed the orbit. It was quiet in the satellite, a busy quiet broken by the click of seeking microswitches and the gentle purr of smooth-running motors. The deep pulsing throb of the air conditioner had stopped; the satellite was in the Earth’s shadow and there was no need for cooling the interior.

“Well,” said Morgan, “it checks. We’ll pass within fifty feet of the other satellite. Too close. Think we ought to move?”

Kaufman looked at him and did not speak. McNary glanced up and snorted. Morgan nodded. He said, “That’s right. If there’s any moving to be done, let them do it.” He felt a curious nascent emotion, a blend of anger and exhilaration—very faint now, just strong enough to be recognizable. The pencil snapped in his fingers, and he stared at it, and smiled.

Kaufman said, “Any way we can reline this a little? Fifty feet cuts it kind of close.”

They were silent, and the murmuring of machinery filled the cramped room. “How’s this?” said McNary. “Wait till we see the other satellite, take a couple of readings on it, and compute the orbit again. We’d have about five minutes to make the calculations. Morgan here can do it in less than that. Then we’d know if we’re on a collision course.”

Morgan nodded. “We could do it that way.” He studied the chart in front of him. “The only thing, those boys on the other satellite will see what we’re doing. They’ll know we’re afraid of a collision. They’ll radio it down to Earth, and—you know the Russian mind—we’ll lose face.”

“That so bad?” asked Kaufman.

Morgan stared at the chart. He answered softly, “Yes, I think it is. The Russians will milk it dry if we make any move to get our satellite out of the way of theirs. We can’t do that to our people.”

McNary nodded. Kaufman said, “Agree. Just wanted to throw it out. We stay put. We hit, we hit.”

The other two looked at Kaufman. The abrupt dismissal of a serious problem was characteristic of the little astronomer; Kaufman wasted no time with second guesses. A decision made was a fact accomplished; it was over.

Morgan glanced at McNary to see how he was taking it. McNary, now, big as he was, was a worrier. He stood ready to change his mind at any time, whenever some new alternative looked better. Only the soundness of his judgment prevented his being putty in any strong hands. He was a meteorologist, and a good one.

“You know,” said McNary, “I still can’t quite believe it. Two satellites, one pole-to-pole, the other equatorial, both having apogees and perigees of different elevations—yet they wind up on what amounts to a collision course.”

Morgan said, ‘That’s what regression will do for you. But we haven’t got any time for that; we’ve got to think this out. Let’s see, they’ll be coming up from below us at passage. Can we make anything of that?”

There was silence while the three men considered it. Morgan’s mind was focused on the thing that was about to happen; but wisps of memory intruded. Faintly he could hear the waves, smell the bite in the salt sea air. A man who had sailed a thirty-two-foot ketch alone into every corner of the globe never thereafter quite lost the sound of the sea in his ear. And the struggle, the duel, the strain of outguessing the implacable elements, there was a test of a man.....

“Better be outside in any case,” said Kaufman. “Suited up and outside. They’ll see us, and know we intend to do nothing to avoid collision. Also, we’ll be in a better position to cope with anything that comes along, if we’re in the suits.”

Morgan and McNary nodded, and again there was talk. They discussed the desirability of radio communication with the other satellite, and decided against it. To keep their own conversations private, they agreed to use telephone communication instead of radio. When the discussion trailed off, Kaufman said, “Be some picture, if we have the course computed right. We stand there and wave at ‘em as they go by.”

Morgan tried to see it in his mind: three men standing on a long, slim tube, and waving at three men on another. The first rocket passage, and me waving. And then Morgan remembered something, and the image changed.

He saw the flimsy, awkward planes sputtering past each other on the morning’s mission. The pilots, detached observers, noncombatants really, waved at each other as the rickety planes passed. Kindred souls they were, high above the walks of normal men. So they waved ... for a while.

Morgan said, “Do you suppose they’ll try anything?”

“Like what?” said Kaufman.

“Like knocking us out of orbit if they can. Like shooting at us if they have a gun. Like throwing something at us, if they’ve got nothing better to do.”

“My God,” said McNary, “you think they might have brought a gun up here?”

Morgan began examining the interior of the tiny cabin. Slowly he turned his head, looking at one piece of equipment after another, visualizing what was packed away under it and behind it. To the right of the radio was the space-suit locker, and his glance lingered there. He reached over, opened the door and slipped a hand under the suits packed in the locker. For a moment he fumbled and then he sat back holding an oxygen flask in his hand. He hefted the small steel flask and looked at Kaufman. “Can you think of anything better than this for throwing?”

Kaufman took it and hefted it in his turn, and passed it to McNary. McNary did the same and then carefully held it in front of him and took his hand away. The flask remained poised in mid-air, motionless. Kaufman shook his head and said, “I can’t think of anything better. It’s got good mass, fits the hand well. It’ll do.”

Morgan said, “Another thing. We clip extra flasks to our belts and they look like part of the standard equipment. It won’t be obvious that we’re carrying something we can throw.”

McNary gently pushed the flask toward Morgan, who caught it and replaced it. McNary said, “I used to throw a hot pass at Berkeley. I wonder how the old arm is.”

The discussion went on. At one point the radio came to life and Kaufman had a lengthy conversation with one of the control points on the surface of the planet below. They talked in code. It was agreed that the American satellite should not move to make room for the other, and this information was carefully leaked so the Russians would be aware of the decision.

The only difficulty was that the Russians also leaked the information that their satellite would not move, either.

A final check of the two orbits revealed no change. Kaufman switched off the set.

“That,” he said, “is the whole of it.”

“They’re leaving us pretty much on our own,” said McNary.

“Couldn’t be any other way,” Morgan answered. “We’re the ones at the scene. Besides”—he smiled his tight smile— “they trust us.”

Kaufman snorted. “Ought to. They went to enough trouble to pick us.”

McNary looked at the chronometer and said, “Three quarters of an hour to passage. We’d better suit up.”

Morgan nodded and reached again into the suit locker. The top suit was McNary’s, and as he worked his way into it, Morgan and Kaufman pressed against the walls to give him room. Kaufman was next, and then Morgan. They set out the helmets, and while Kaufman and McNary made a final check of the equipment, Morgan took several sights to verify their position.