Гарри Гаррисон - 50 in 50

Damian hesitated in slow thought, then shook his head no.

"Well, I did. Grabbed you, then the girl, she was lying on the deck out cold. Just as I stuffed her in I heard the bulkhead blowing behind me so I climbed in right on top of her. Vacuum sucked the inner hatch shut even before I could touch it."

"The others. .?"

"Dead, Damian boy, every single one. Sole survivors, that's us."

Damian gasped. "You can't be sure," he said.

"I'm sure. I watched from the port. Torn to pieces. Blew up. The blast scaled off the chunk of ship we were in just long enough for us to get into this can. Even then there wouldn't have been enough time if I hadn't had the lid open and knew the drill. Don't expect those kind of odds to pay off twice in a lifetime."

"Will anyone find us?" There was a faint tremor in his voice. Chuck shrugged.

"No telling. Give me back the booze before you squeeze the bottle out of shape."

"You can send a message, there must be a radio in this thing."

Chuck gasped happily after a throat-destroying drink and held the almost empty flask up to the light. "Save a little to bring the girl around. You must have been out on your feet, Damian lad, you lay right there all the time watching me send the SOS. I stopped just as soon as I tried the receiver."

"I don't remember. It must have been the shock — but why did you stop transmitting? I don't understand."

Chuck bent and pulled at one of the handles below them. The padded lid lifted to reveal the controls of a compact transceiver. He flipped a switch and a waterfall-like roar filled the tiny space, then was silenced as he turned it off and closed the lid. Damian shook his head.

"What does that mean?" he asked. "Solar flare. Storm on the sun. We can never push a signal through that kind of interference. All we can do is hold our water until it stops. Say, it looks like our girlfriend is coming around."

They both turned to look at her where she lay on the padded wall of the capsule, Damian's eyes widening as he realized for the first time just how attractive she was. Her hair was deep, flaming red, lovely even in the tangled disarray that framed her face. Only the ugly bruise on her forehead marred the pink smoothness of her skin, and her figure was lush, clearly defined by the tight-bodiced, full-skirted dress. The skirt had ridden up, almost to her waist, revealing graceful and supple legs and black-lace sequined undergarments.

"Really," Damian said, putting his hand out, then pulling it back. "It's not right. Shouldn't we. . adjust her garments?"

"Help yourself," Chuck smiled. "But I was enjoying it. I've never seen — what do you call them? knickers — quite like that before. Very fancy." But he was pulling her skirt down even as he said it. Her head turned and she moaned.

"Can she be badly hurt?" Damian asked. "Have you done anything for her?"

"I have no idea, and no, in that order. Unless you're a doctor—"

"No, I'm not."

"— there is nothing we can do. So I let her sleep. When she conies to I'll give her a slug of this paint remover. Never give drink to anyone unconscious, it could get in the lungs, First Aid Course 3B, Space Academy."

Both men watched, silently, as her eyelids slowly opened, disclosing gray, lovely eyes that moved their gaze across their faces and about the cramped interior of the capsule. Then she began to scream, emptying her lungs in a single spasm of sound then gasping them full again only to repeat the terrified sound. Chuck let her do this three times before he cracked her across the face with his open hand leaving an instant red imprint on the fairness of her skin. The screams broke off and she began to sob.

"You shouldn't—" Damian began.

'"Of course I should," Chuck said. "Medicinal. She got it out of her system and now she's having a good cry. I'm Chuck.” he told the girl, "and this is Damian. What's your name?"

"What happened to us? Where are we?"

"Chuck and Damian. What's yours?"

"Please tell me. I'm Helena Tyblewski. What happened?"

"I know you, at least I've heard of you," Damian said. "You're with the Polish artists at Mooncenter—"

"Socialities later, boy. We're in an emergency capsule, Helena, in good shape. We have water, food, oxygen — and a radio to call for help. I'm telling you that so you'll realize how well off we are compared to the others aboard the Yuri. There was an accident. Everyone else is dead."

"And. . what will happen to us?"

"A good question. You can help me find out. Drain this vodka bottle, I need the empty flask. And let me have your shoes — yours too, Damian."

"What are you talking about? What for?" Chuck began to loosen the wing nuts that held the deadlight sealed in place.

"A fair question," he said. "Since I'm the only member of the ship's company present, I'm automatically in command. But we're a little too cramped here for me to pull rank, so I'll tell you what I know and what I want to do. When the accident happened we were, roughly, a quarter of the way from the moon to Earth. Where we are now I have no idea, and it is important that I find out."

The deadlight came free and he swung it to one side, disclosing the capsule's single porthole. Outside, the stars cut ribbons of white light across the darkness, while the Earth made a wider, greenish band.

"As you can see we are rotating about the major axis of this thermos bottle. I'll need star sights to plot our position, which means we have to slow down or stop this thing. Luckily the outer hatch opening faces the direction of motion, so anything ejected from it will slow us down. The more the mass and the greater the speed of ejection, the more retardation we'll get. There isn't much surplus to throw away in one of these capsules, that's why I want your shoes. The temperature controls work fine, so you won't need them. Okay?"

There were no arguments. Their shoes went into the lock along with the empty flask, some of the padding from the wall, and all the other small items that could be accumulated. Chuck sealed the inner hatch and pumped in oxygen from the tanks to raise the pressure as high as possible. When he threw the handle that opened the latch on the outer door, the capsule seemed to start spinning around them and they tumbled together against the wall.

"Sorry," Damian said, reddening as he realized that his arms were around Helen and he was lying on top of her. She smiled as they drifted away from the padding and there was suddenly no up and down as they floated in free fall. Chuck frowned at the stars moving leisurely by the port.

"That should be good enough to get some sightings. If not, we can jettison some more junk."

He undipped his comparison dectant from the holder on his belt and pointed it out of the port, squinting through it. "That is going to take a while," he said, "so relax. With this gadget I can measure the angular distance of up to five astronomical objects; it will remember the angles and its tiny, microminiaturized brain can even do some of the basic computations. But it will still take time. So let's trade confidences, get to know each other, real chummy if you get what I mean. Me, I'm the simple one. Bronx High School, Columbia, the Academy — then the moon run ever since. What about you, Helena? Our limey friend said you were an artiste. A singer? Going to let us have an aria or two?"

Helena compressed her lips. "I am not that sort of artiste. I create— the newest and most expressive art form, light mobiles."

"I've seen them," Chuck said, sighting on another star. "They always hurt my eyes and give me a headache. What about you, Damian, are you a bank robber or an embezzler?"

"Sir!"

"Well don't blame me for asking, not after all that mumbling you were doing about thirty thousand pounds, gone, gone."