Frank Long: Space Station 1

Nearer and nearer to Earth the freighter swept, completely encircling the planet like a runaway moon with an orbital velocity so great the eye could hardly follow it.

“It will blast out a meteor pit as wide as the Grand Canyon if it explodes on land”, someone at Corriston’s elbow said. “I wouldn’t care to be within a hundred miles of it”. “Neither would I. It could wipe out a city, all right — any city within a radius of thirty miles. This is really something to watch!”

The freighter had encircled Earth twice and was now so close to its blue-green oceans and the dun-colored immensity of its continental land masses that it had almost disappeared from view. It had dwindled to a tiny, glowing pinpoint of radiance crossing the face of the planet, an erratically weaving firefly that had abandoned all hope of guiding itself by a light that was about to flare up with explosive violence and put an end to its life.

The freighter was invisible when the end came. It was invisible when it struck and rebounded and channeled a deep pit in a green valley on Earth. But the explosion which followed was seen by every man and woman on the Station’s wide-view promenade.

There were three tremendous flares, each opening and spreading outward like the sides of a funnel, each a livid burst of incandescence spiraling outward into space.

As seen from the Station the flares were not, of course, so tragically spectacular. They resembled more successive flashes of almost instantaneous brightness, flashes such as had many times been produced by the tilting of a heliograph on the rust-red plains of Mars under conditions of maximum visibility.

It takes an experienced eye to interpret such phenomena correctly, and among the spectators on the promenade there were a few, no doubt, who were not even quite sure that the freighter had exploded.

But Corriston had no doubts at all on that score. The full extent of the tragedy would be revealed later by radio communication from Earth.

There was a long silence before anyone spoke. The group around Corriston seemed paralyzed by shock, unable to express in words how blindly hopeful they had dared to be, or how fatalistic from the first. There were a few moist eyes among the women, an awkward, almost reverent shuffling of feet.

Then the young man at Corriston’s elbow cleared his throat and said in a barely audible whisper: “It didn’t come down in the sea”.

“I know”, Corriston said. “It came down in North America, close to the Canadian border”.

“In the United States?”.

“Yes, I think so. We can’t be sure. It’s too much to hope there was no destruction of human life after an explosion of that magnitude”.

Corriston suddenly realized that he was behaving like a man who had taken complete leave of his wits. He was drawing more and more attention to himself when he should have been bending all of his efforts toward making himself as inconspicuous as possible.

Fortunately the agitation of everyone on thie promenade was helping to remedy his blunder. His wisest course now was simply to recede as an individual, to move silently to the perimeter of the group and just as silently vanish.

He was confident that he could accomplish it. He began elbowing his way backwards until there were a dozen men and women in front of him. He let himself be observed briefly as a grim-lipped spectator who had taken such an emotional pounding that he could endure no more. Suddenly he saw his chance and took it. There was another small group of civilians close to the group he had joined, and he ducked quickly behind them, using their turned-away backs as a shield. He edged toward a paneled door on his right, his only concern for the moment being a comparatively simple one. He must get away from the crowded promenade as swiftly as possible.

He reached the door, swung the panel wide, and stepped into the long, brightly-lighted compartment beyond without a backward glance. Almost immediately he perceived that he had committed an act of folly. The compartment was a promenade cafeteria and it was crowded with an overflow of agitated men and women discussing the tragedy in heated terms.

Keep cool now. None of these people are interested in you. Keep cool and keep on walking. There’s another door and you can be through it in less than a minute , Corriston told himself.

There was a pretty waitress behind the long counter, and as he came abreast of her she smiled at him. For an instant he hesitated, eyed the stool opposite her, and fought off an incongruous but almost irresistible impulse to sit down. Quick warmth and sudden sympathy. Yes, he could do with a bit of both, Corriston thought.

It was sheer insanity, but he did sit down. He eased himself into the stool and ordered a cup of coffee.

“Something with it?” the waitress asked. “A sandwich, or” —

“No, no, I don’t think so”, Corriston said quickly. “Just the coffee”.

The waitress seemed in no hurry to depart. “It was pretty terrible what happened. Wasn’t it?”.

“Did you see it?” Corriston asked.

“I saw most of it. I saw the ship go past the Station and start to explode. I saw that black wing, or whatever it was, drop off. Then someone started shouting in here and I came back. They say it crashed on Earth”.

“That’s right”, Corriston said, telling himself that he was a damned fool for wanting to look at her hair and hear her friendly woman’s voice when every passing second was adding to his danger.

“You saw it crash?”.

Corriston nodded. “I just came from the promenade”. “That was a crazy thing to ask you. How excited can you get? I saw you come through that door. You looked kind of pale”.

“I still feel that way”, Corriston said.

The waitress then said a surprising thing: “I wonder what it is about some men. You just have to look at them once and you know they’re the sort you’d like to be with when something terrible happens. You know what I mean?” “Sure”, Corriston said. “Any port in a storm”.

The waitress smiled again. “I don’t mean that, exactly. Please don’t think I’m handing you a line. There’s just something... comfortable about you. You go all pale when something bad happens to other people. That’s good; I like that. It means you can feel for other people. You’re a gentle sort of guy, but I bet you can take care of yourself and anyone you care about. I just bet you can”. The waitress flushed a little, as if afraid that she had said too much. She turned and walked slowly toward the coffee percolator at the far end of the counter.

He was glad now that he had ordered the coffee. The coffee would help too. He suddenly felt that he was under observation, that hostile eyes were watching him. But it was no more than just a feeling; and coffee and sympathy might drive it away.

How blindly, stupidly foolish could a guy be? Corriston thought. If he had any sense at all he wouldn’t wait for the coffee. He’d get up quickly and head for the door at the other end of the cafeteria. He’d either do that, or swing about abruptly and attempt to catch the silent watcher by surprise.

Corriston decided to wait for the coffee.

The waitress looked at him strangely when she returned. She set the coffee down before him and started to turn away, her eyes troubled. Then, suddenly, she seemed to change her mind. She leaned close to him and whispered: “You’d better leave by the promenade door. That man over there has been watching you. I know him very well. He’s a Security Guard”.

Corriston nodded and stared at her gratefully for a moment. He was more relieved than alarmed. It was far better to have a Security Guard watching him than a killer with a poisoned barb. He wasn’t exactly happy about it, but he was confident he could elude the agent.