Two hours later the gigantic silver outpost loomed through the astronauts’
cabin view pane. It appeared to be floating motionless in the inky void, but was actually racing along in orbit at 6,800 miles per hour.
Tom switched from automatic pilot to manual steering so as to nose the rocket into mooring position. As soon as its air lock was lined up with the station’s entry port, Tom flicked on the magnetic grapples. But the expected green light failed to flash on his control panel.
SABOTEUR SEARCH 79
“Hold it, skipper,” the outpost’s radioman signaled. “Something’s wrong with the automatic coupling device.”
A check-through was hastily made, but failed to reveal the cause of the trouble. Tom backed the ship away slightly, then said, “Take over, Bud.”
The young inventor donned his space suit and went out through the air-lock hatch. Chow and the other crewmen aboard saw him jet across to the space station and examine the couplings. Then Tom went into the station through the entry port. Tedious minutes went by.
“What in tarnation’s wrong?” Chow wondered uneasily. “Are they sendin’
down to earth for a new part?”
The words were hardly out of his mouth when Tom emerged again from the space wheel, accompanied by Ken Horton, also space-suited. Both carried tools.
They tinkered with the coupling mechanism.
At last Tom signaled Bud to proceed with the mooring. As he waved the ship forward, Bud fed a slight spurt of power to the steering motors.
“Oh!” Tom cried out.
The rocket ship had closed in so suddenly that his metal-gauntleted right hand was caught in the automatic coupling!