“How about his position? Did you get a fix?”
“Approximately,” Ken replied. “He was about 12,000 miles above the Pacific, somewhere around 20 degrees north latitude and 130 degrees west longitude.
Orbiting on a northeasterly track.”
After inquiring the time of the call, Tom gave orders to his crew to re-embark immediately aboard the Challenger for a rescue operation. All data on the stranded spaceman was fed into a computer which supplied the proper course and speed to the ship’s navigating instruments. In a few moments the great silver space craft was spearing downward to intercept the derelict.
“Got it, skipper!” the radarman called over the intercom. “Twelve degrees starboard, elevation minus five!”
“There he is!” Bud cried a moment later, pointing through his copilot’s window.
A small rocket ship was drifting in the inky void with its final stage still clinging, half-locked, to the nose section.
118 SPACE SOLARTRON
Tom flicked on the radio and spoke into his microphone. “Swift ship Challenger calling stranded rocket! Can you read me?”
“Rocket to Challenger,” came the reply. “I can read you and see you. My third stage is jammed and I’m marooned in orbit. Can you take me aboard?”
“Roger. Who are you?”
“My name is Selwyn Joss,” the space voyager replied. “I blasted off this morning from one of the Marshall Islands. Destination moon-but this is as far as I got.”
“You took off by yourself?” Tom asked unbelievingly.
“Sure. Why not? It’s a one-man ship.”
Tom and Bud exchanged startled glances. Bud pointed one finger to his head and twirled the finger as if to say, “The guy must be crazy!”