A quick look showed him that the kitten was not in the room, and his ear led him to the correct spot; the sound came in through the slightly opened window. He shied off, stopped, and tried to collect his thoughts.
He told himself that it was unnecessary to do anything more; if the sound came in through his window, then it must be because it came out of some nearby window. But he knew that he was lying to himself; the sound was close by. In some impossible way the cat was just outside his window, thirty-five stories above the street.
He sat down and tried to strike a cigarette, but the tube broke in his fingers. He let the fragments fall to the floor, got up and took six nervous steps toward the window, as if he were being jerked along. He sank down to his knees, grasped the window and threw it wide open, then clung to the windowsill, his eyes shut tight.
After a time the sill seemed to steady a bit. He opened his eyes, gasped, and shut them again. Finally he opened them again, being very careful not to look out at the stars, not to look down at the street. He had half expected to find the cat on a balcony outside his room – it seemed the only reasonable explanation. But there was no balcony, no place at all where a cat could reasonably be.
However, the mewing was louder than ever. It seemed to come from directly under him. Slowly he forced his head out, still clinging to the sill, and made himself look down. Under him, about four feet lower than the edge of the window, a narrow ledge ran around the side of the building. Seated on it was a woebegone ratty-looking kitten. It stared up at him and meowed again.
It was barely possible that, by clinging to the sill with one hand and making a long arm with the other, he could reach it without actually going out the window, he thought – if he could bring himself to do it. He considered calling Tully, then thought better of it. Tully was shorter than he was, had less reach. And the kitten had to be rescued now, before the fluff-brained idiot jumped or fell.
He tried for it. He shoved his shoulders out, clung with his left arm and reached down with his right. Then he opened his eyes and saw that he was a foot or ten inches away from the kitten still. It sniffed curiously in the direction of his hand.
He stretched till his bones cracked. The kitten promptly skittered away from his clutching fingers, stopping a good six feet down the ledge. There it settled down and commenced washing its face.
He inched back inside and collapsed, sobbing, on the floor underneath the window. «I can't do it,» he whispered. «I can't do it. Not again – »
The Rocket Ship Valkyrie was two hundred and forty-nine days out from Earth-Luna Space Terminal and approaching Mars Terminal on Deimos, outer Martian satellite. William Cole, Chief Communications Officer and relief pilot, was sleeping sweetly when his assistant shook him. «Hey! Bill! Wake up – we're in a jam.»
«Huh? Wazzat?» But he was already reaching for his socks. «What's the trouble, Tom?»
Fifteen minutes later he knew that his junior officer had not exaggerated; he was reporting the facts to the Old Man – the primary piloting radar was out of whack. Tom Sandburg had discovered it during a routine check, made as soon as Mars was inside the maximum range of the radar pilot. The captain had shrugged. «Fix it, Mister – and be quick about it. We need it.»
Bill Cole shook his head. «There's nothing wrong with it, Captain – inside. She acts as if the antenna were gone completely.»
«That's impossible. We haven't even had a meteor alarm.»
«Might be anything, Captain. Might be metal fatigue and it just fell off. But we've got to replace that antenna. Stop the spin on the ship and I'll go out and fix it. I can jury-rig a replacement while she loses her spin.»
The Valkyrie was a luxury ship, of her day. She was assembled long before anyone had any idea of how to produce an artificial gravity field. Nevertheless she had pseudogravity for the comfort of her passengers. She spun endlessly around her main axis, like a shell from a rifled gun; the resulting angular acceleration – miscalled «centrifugal force» – kept her passengers firm in their beds, or steady on their feet. The spin was started as soon as her rockets stopped blasting at the beginning of a trip and was stopped only when it was necessary to maneuver into a landing. It was accomplished, not by magic, but by reaction against the contrary spin of a flywheel located on her center-line.
The captain looked annoyed. «I've started to take the spin off, but I can't wait that long. Jury-rig the astrogational radar for piloting.»
Cole started to explain why the astrogational radar could not be adapted to short-range work, then decided not to try. «It can't be done, sir. It's a technical impossibility.»
«When I was your age I could jury-rig anything! Well, find me an answer, Mister. I can't take this ship down blind. Not even for the Harriman Medal.»
Bill Cole hesitated for a moment before replying, «I'll have to go out while she's still got spin on her, Captain, and make the replacement. There isn't any other way to do it.»
The captain looked away from him, his jaw muscles flexed. «Get the replacement ready. Hurry up about it.»
Cole found the captain already at the airlock when he arrived with the gear he needed for the repair. To his surprise the Old Man was suited up. «Explain to me what I'm to do,» he ordered Bill.
«You're not going out, sir?»
The captain simply nodded. Bill took a look at his captain's waist line, or where his waist line used to be. Why, the Old Man must be thirty-five if he were a day!
«I'm afraid I can't explain too clearly. I had expected to make the repair myself.»
«I've never asked a man to do a job I wouldn't do myself. Explain it to me.»
«Excuse me, sir – but can you chin yourself with one hand?»
«What's that got to do with it?»
«Well, we've got forty-eight passengers, sir, and – »
«Shut up!»
Sandburg and he, both in space suits, helped the Old Man down the hole after the inner door of the lock was closed and the air exhausted. The space beyond the lock was a vast, starflecked emptiness. With spin still on the ship, every direction outward was «down,» down for millions of uncounted miles. They put a safety line on him, of course – nevertheless it gave him a sinking feeling to see the captain's head disappear in the bottomless, black hole.
The line paid out steadily for several feet, then stopped. When it had been stopped for several minutes, Bill leaned over and touched his helmet against Sandburg's. «Hang on to my feet. I'm going to take a look.»
He hung his head down out the lock and looked around. The captain was stopped, hanging by both hands, nowhere near the antenna fixture. He scrambled back up and reversed himself. «I'm going out.»
It was no great trick, he found, to hang by his hands and swing himself along to where the captain was stalled. The Valkyrie was a space-to-space ship, not like the sleek-sided jobs we see around earthports; she was covered with handholds for the convenience of repairmen at the terminals. Once he reached him, it was possible, by grasping the same steel rung that the captain clung to, to aid him in swinging back to the last one he had quitted. Five minutes later Sandburg was pulling the Old Man up through the hole and Bill was scrambling after him.
He began at once to unbuckle the repair gear from the captain's suit and transfer it to his own. He lowered himself back down the hole and was on his way before the older man had recovered enough to object, if he still intended to.
Swinging out to where the antenna must be replaced was not too hard, though he had all eternity under his toes. The suit impeded him a little – the gloves were clumsy – but he was used to spacesuits. He was a little winded from helping the captain, but he could not stop to think about that. The increased spin bothered him somewhat; the airlock was nearer the axis of spin than was the antenna – he felt heavier as he moved out.