“That was a bumpy ride,” said Morgan. “But I'm still here – and so is that infernal battery.”

“So I warned you. You'll have to try harder. Two seconds at least.”

Morgan knew that he could not outguess Kingsley, with all the figures and computing power at his command, but he still felt the need for some reassuring mental arithmetic. Two seconds of free fall – say half a second to put on the brakes – allowing one ton for the mass of Spider. . . . The question was: which would go first – the strap retaining the battery, or the tape that was holding him here four hundred kilometres up in the sky? In the usual way it would be “no contest” in a trial between hyperfilament and ordinary steel. But if he applied the brakes too suddenly – or they seized owing to this maltreatment – both might snap. And then he and the battery would reach the earth at very nearly the same time.

“Two seconds it is,” he told Kingsley. “Here we go.”

This time the jerk was nerve-racking in its violence, and the torsional oscillations took much longer to die out. Morgan was certain that he would have felt – or heard – the breaking of the strap. He was not surprised when a glance in the mirror confirmed that the battery was still there.

Kingsley did not seem too worried. “It may take three or four tries,” he said.

Morgan was tempted to retort: “Are you after my job?” but then thought better of it. Warren would be amused; other unknown listeners might not.

After the third fall – he felt he had dropped kilometres, but it was only about a hundred metres – even Kingsley's optimism started to fade. It was obvious that the trick was not going to work.

“I'd like to send my compliments to the people who made that safety strap,” said Morgan wryly. “Now what do you suggest? A three-second drop before I slam on the brakes?”

He could almost see Warren shake his head. “Too big a risk. I'm not so much worried about the tape as the braking mechanism. It wasn't designed for this sort of thing.”

“Well, it was a good try,” Morgan answered. “But I'm not giving up yet. I'm damned if I'll be beaten by a simple butterfly nut, fifty centimetres in front of my nose. I'm going outside to get at it.”

50. The Falling Fireflies

01 15 24

This is Friendship Seven. I'll try to describe what I'm in here. I am in a big mass of some very small particles that are brilliantly lit up like they're luminescent. . . . They're coming by the capsule, and they look like little stars. A whole shower of them coming by.

01 16 10

They're very slow; they're not going away from me more than maybe three or four miles an hour. .

01 19 38

Sunrise has just come up behind in the periscope, as I looked back out of the window, I had literally thousands of small, luminous particles swirling round the capsule.

(Commander John Glenn, Mercury “Friendship Seven”, 1962 Feb. 20.)

With the old-style spacesuits, reaching that butterfly nut would have been completely out of the question. Even with the Flexisuit that Morgan was now wearing it might still be difficult – but at least he would make the attempt.

Very carefully, because more lives than his own now depended upon it, he rehearsed the sequence of events. He must check the suit, depressurise the capsule, and open the hatch – which, luckily, was almost full-length. Then he must release the safety belt, get down on his knees – if he could! – and reach for that butterfly nut. Everything depended upon its tightness. There were no tools of any kind aboard Spider, but Morgan was prepared to match his fingers – even in spacegloves – against the average small wrench.

He was just about to describe his plan of operations in case anyone on the ground could find a fatal flaw when he became aware of a certain mild discomfort. He could readily tolerate it for much longer, if necessary, but there was no point in taking chances. If he used the capsule's own plumbing, he would not have to bother with the awkward Diver's Friend incorporated in the suit.

When he had finished he turned the key of the Urine Dump – and was startled by a tiny explosion near the base of the capsule. Almost instantly, to his astonishment, a cloud of twinkling stars winked into existence, as if a microscopic galaxy had been suddenly created. Morgan had the illusion that, just for a fraction of a second, it hovered motionless outside the capsule; then it started to fall straight down, as swiftly as any stone dropped on earth. Within seconds it had dwindled to a point, and then was gone.

Nothing could have brought home more clearly the fact that he was still wholly a captive of the earth's gravitational field. He remembered how, in the very early days of orbital flight, the first astronauts were puzzled and then amused by the haloes of ice crystals that accompanied them around the planet; there had been some feeble jokes about the “Constellation Urion”. That could not happen here; anything that he dropped, however fragile it might be, would crash straight back into the atmosphere. He must never forget that, despite his altitude, he was not an astronaut, revelling in the freedom of weightlessness. He was a man inside a building four hundred kilometres high, preparing to open the window and go out on to the ledge.

51. On the Porch

Though it was cold and uncomfortable on the summit, the crowd continued to grow. There was something hypnotic about that brilliant little star in the zenith, upon which the thoughts of the world, as well as the laser beam from Kinte, were now focused. As they arrived, all the visitors would head for the north tape, and stroke it in a shy, half-defiant manner as if to say: “I know this is silly, but makes me feel I'm in contact with Morgan”. Then they would gather round the coffee dispenser and listen to the reports coming over the speaker system. There was nothing new from the refugees in the Tower; they were all sleeping – or trying to sleep – in an attempt to conserve oxygen. As Morgan was not yet overdue, they had not been informed of the hold-up; but within the next hour they would undoubtedly be calling Midway to find what had happened.

Maxine Duval had arrived at Sri Kanda just ten minutes too late to see Morgan. There was a time when such a near-miss would have made her very angry; now she merely shrugged her shoulders and reassured herself with the thought that she would be the first to grab the engineer on his return. Kingsley had not allowed her to speak to him, and she had accepted even this ruling with good grace. Yes, she was growing old. ..

For the last five minutes the only sound that had come from the capsule was a series of “Checks” as Morgan went through the suit routine with an expert up in Midway. That was now complete; everyone was waiting tensely for the crucial next step.

“Valving the air,” said Morgan, his voice overlaid with a slight echo now that he had closed the visor of his helmet. “Capsule pressure zero. No problem with breathing.” A thirty second pause; then: “Opening the front door – there it goes. Now releasing the seat-belt.”

There was an unconscious stirring and murmuring among the watchers. In imagination, every one of them was up there in the capsule, aware of the void that had suddenly opened before him.

"Quick-release buckle operated. I'm stretching my legs. Not much head-room.

"Just getting the feel of the suit – quite flexible – now I'm going out on the porch – don't worry! – I've got the seat-belt wrapped around my left arm.

"Phew. Hard work, bending as much as this. But I can see that butterfly nut, underneath the porch grille. I'm working out how to reach it. ..

"On my knees now – not very comfortable – I've got it! Now to see if it will turn. . .