“Let’s try the rocket motors again,” he said finally.
Switching back to automatic pilot, Tom fed a return flight tape to Fearing Island into the Spacelane Brain. The machine accepted the message and appeared to be purring smoothly into action. But a glance through the cabin’s transparent canopy showed that the ship was failing to stir from its position alongside the cargo rocket.
“We’re stalled cold,” Bud muttered grimly.
“Looks as though we’ll have to tow it back to Fearing,” Tom decided.
A reel of metal cable, lightweight but immensely strong, was rolled out of the cargo rocket’s hatch. Tom and Bud, in their space suits, secured the ends of the cable to special fittings on the two craft. Then Tom returned to the cargo rocket, while Bud was detailed to convoy the disabled ship on the flight back to earth.
Again Tom executed a gyro-reverse and fired his steering rockets to brake orbital velocity. The
64 COSMIC ASTRONAUTS
ship shuddered and peeled from orbit. A split second later came a tremendous jolt as the cable snapped taut, pulling the stranded rocket ship in their wake.
Then came the plunge earthward at dazzling speed; next, the sensation of returning gravity as they bit into the atmosphere. Around the night side of earth the ships whizzed like glowing comets -across the North American continent, and finally into a safe landing on Fearing Island.
Bob Jeffers squeezed Tom’s hand after the spaceships’ crews had disembarked. “Thanks for getting us home again, skipper,” he said simply.
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