anderson and morrow floated clear of the huge wheel, turning lazily in the deceptive luxury of zero gravity. the familiar sensation of exhilaration threatened to wipe out the urgency they must bring to bear on their lone chance for survival. they could see the jagged hole where the moonbeam had yanked out a section of the structure.
an unintelligible buzz of voice murmured in the radios. unconsciously kevin tried to squeeze the earphones against his ears, but his heavily-gloved hands met only the rigid globe of his helmet.
"you get it, bert?"
"no."
"this is jones," a new voice loud and clear. "earth says 15 seconds to blastoff."
"rocket away!"
like a tiny, clear bell the words emerged from static. bert and kevin gyrated their bodies so they could stare directly at the passing panorama of earth below. they had seen it hundreds of times, but now 250 more miles of altitude gave the illusion they were studying a familiar landmark through the small end of a telescope.
"there it is!" bert shouted.
a pinpoint of flame, that was it, with no apparent motion as it rose almost vertically toward them.
then a black dot in an infinitesimal circle of flame—the rocket silhouetted against its own fire ... as big as a dime ... as big as a dollar....
... as big as a basketball, the circle of flame soared up toward them.
"it's still firing!" kevin yelled. "it'll overshoot us."
as he spoke, the fire died, but the tiny bar of the rocket, black against the luminous surface of earth, crawled rapidly up into their sector of starlit blackness. then it was above earth's horizon, nearly to the space station's orbit, crawling slowly along, almost to them—a beautiful long cylinder of metal, symbol of home and a civilization sending power to help them to safety.
hope flashed through kevin's mind that he was wrong, that the giant computer and the careful hands of technicians had matched the ship to their orbit after all.
but he was right. it passed them, angling slowly upward not 50 yards away.
instantly the two men rode the rocket blast of their pistols to the nose of the huge projectile. but it carried velocity imparted by rockets that had fired a fraction of a minute too long.
clinging to the metal with magnetic shoes, morrow and anderson pressed the triggers of the pistols, held them down, trying to push the cylinder down and back.
bert's heavy breathing rasped in the radio as he unconsciously used the futile force of his muscles in the agonizing effort to move the ship.
their pistols gave out almost simultaneously. both reached for another. thin streams of propulsive gas altered the course of the rocket, slightly, but the space station was smaller now, angling imperceptibly away and down as the rocket pressed outward into a new, higher orbit.
the rocket pistols were not enough.
"get the hell back here!" jones' voice blared in their ears. "you can't do it. you're 20 miles away now and angling up. don't be dead heroes!" the last words were high and frantic.
"we've got to!" morrow answered. "there's no other way."
"we can't do the impossible, chief," bert gasped.
a group of tiny figures broke away from the rim of the space station. the tugmen were coming to help.
