Nothing could have brought home more clearly the fact that he was still wholly a captive of the earth’s gravitational field. He remembered how, in the very early days of orbital flight, the first astronauts were puzzled and then amused by the haloes of ice crystals that accompanied them around the planet; there had been some feeble jokes about the “Constellation Urion”. That could not happen here; anything that he dropped, however fragile it might be, would crash straight back into the atmosphere. He must never forget that, despite his altitude, he was not an astronaut, revelling in the freedom of weightlessness. He was a man inside a building four hundred kilometres high, preparing to open the window and go out on to the ledge.
51. On the Porch
Though it was cold and uncomfortable on the summit, the crowd continued to grow. There was something hypnotic about that brilliant little star in the zenith, upon which the thoughts of the world, as well as the laser beam from Kinte, were now focused. As they arrived, all the visitors would head for the north tape, and stroke it in a shy, half-defiant manner as if to say: “I know this is silly, but makes me feel I’m in contact with Morgan”. Then they would gather round the coffee dispenser and listen to the reports coming over the speaker system. There was nothing new from the refugees in the Tower; they were all sleeping – or trying to sleep – in an attempt to conserve oxygen. As Morgan was not yet overdue, they had not been informed of the hold-up; but within the next hour they would undoubtedly be calling Midway to find what had happened.
Maxine Duval had arrived at Sri Kanda just ten minutes too late to see Morgan. There was a time when such a near-miss would have made her very angry; now she merely shrugged her shoulders and reassured herself with the thought that she would be the first to grab the engineer on his return. Kingsley had not allowed her to speak to him, and she had accepted even this ruling with good grace. Yes, she was growing old. ..
For the last five minutes the only sound that had come from the capsule was a series of “Checks” as Morgan went through the suit routine with an expert up in Midway. That was now complete; everyone was waiting tensely for the crucial next step.
“Valving the air,” said Morgan, his voice overlaid with a slight echo now that he had closed the visor of his helmet. “Capsule pressure zero. No problem with breathing.” A thirty second pause; then: “Opening the front door – there it goes. Now releasing the seatbelt.”
There was an unconscious stirring and murmuring among the watchers. In imagination, every one of them was up there in the capsule, aware of the void that had suddenly opened before him.
“Quick-release buckle operated. I’m stretching my legs. Not much head-room.
“Just getting the feel of the suit – quite flexible – now I’m going out on the porch – don’t worry! – I’ve got the seatbelt wrapped around my left arm.
“Phew. Hard work, bending as much as this. But I can see that butterfly nut, underneath the porch grille. I’m working out how to reach it. ..
“On my knees now – not very comfortable – I’ve got it! Now to see if it will turn…
The listeners became rigid, silent – then, in unison, relaxed with virtually simultaneous sighs of relief.
“No problem! I can turn it easily. Two revs already – any moment now – just a bit more – I can feel it coming off – LOOK OUT DOWN BELOW!”
There was a burst of clapping and cheering; some people put their hands over their heads and cowered in mock terror. One or two, not fully understanding that the falling nut would not arrive for five minutes and would descend ten kilometres to the east, looked genuinely alarmed.
Only Warren Kingsley failed to share the rejoicing. “Don’t cheer too soon,” he said to Maxine. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”
The seconds dragged by… one minute… two minutes…
“It’s no use,” said Morgan at last, his voice thick with rage and frustration. “I can’t budge the strap. The weight of the battery is holding it jammed in the threads. Those jolts we gave must have welded it to the bolt.”
“Come back as quickly as you can,” said Kingsley. “There’s a new power-cell on the way, and we can manage a turn-around in less than an hour. So we can still get up to the Tower in-oh, say six hours. Barring any further accidents, of course.”
Precisely, thought Morgan; and he would not care to take Spider up again without a thorough check of the much-abused braking mechanism. Nor would he trust himself to make a second trip; he was already feeling the strain of the last few hours, and fatigue would soon be slowing down his mind and body, just when he needed maximum efficiency from both.
He was back in the seat now, but the capsule was still open to space and he had not yet refastened the safety belt. To do so would be to admit defeat; and that had never been easy for Morgan.
The unwinking glare of the Kinte laser, coming from almost immediately above, still transfixed him with its pitiless light. He tried to focus his mind upon the problem, as sharply as that beam was focused upon him.
All that he needed was a metal cutter – a hacksaw, or a pair of shears – that could sever the retaining strap. Once again he cursed the fact that there was no tool-kit aboard Spider; even so, it would hardly have contained what he needed.
There were megawatt-hours of energy stored in Spider’s own battery; could he use that in any way? He had a brief fantasy of establishing an arc and burning through the strap; but even if suitable heavy conductors were available – and of course they weren’t – the main power supply was inaccessible from the control cab.
Warren and all the skilled brains gathered around him had failed to find any solution. He was on his own, physically and intellectually. It was, after all, the situation he had always preferred.
And then, just as he was about to reach out and close the capsule door, Morgan knew what he had to do. All the time the answer had been right by his fingertips.
52. The Other Passenger
To Morgan, it seemed that a huge weight had lifted from his shoulders. He felt completely, irrationally confident. This time, surely, it had to work.
Nevertheless, he did not move from his seat until he had planned his actions in minute detail. And when Kingsley, sounding a little anxious, once again urged him to hurry back, he gave an evasive answer. He did not wish to raise any false hopes-on earth, or in the Tower.
“I’m trying an experiment,” be said. “Leave me alone for a few minutes.”
He picked up the fibre dispenser that he had used for so many demonstrations – the little spinnerette that, years ago, had allowed him to descend the face of Yakkagala. One change had been made for reasons of safety; the first metre of filament had been coated with a layer of plastic, so that it was no longer quite invisible, and could be handled cautiously, even with bare fingers.
As Morgan looked at the little box in his hand, he realised how much he had come to regard it as a talisman – almost a good luck charm. Of course, he did not really believe in such things; he always had a perfectly logical reason for carrying the spinnerette around with him. On this ascent it had occurred to him that it might be useful because of its strength and unique lifting power. He had almost forgotten that it had other abilities as well. ..
Once more he clambered out of the seat, and knelt down on the metal grille of Spider’s tiny porch to examine the cause of all the trouble. The offending bolt was only ten centimetres on the other side of the grid, and although its bars were too close together for him to put his hand through them, he had already proved that he could reach around it without too much difficulty.
He released the first metre of coated fibre, and, using the ring at the end as a plumb-bob, lowered it down through the grille. Tucking the dispenser itself firmly in a corner of the capsule, so that he could not accidentally knock it overboard, he then reached round the grille until he could grab the swinging weight. This was not as easy as he had expected, because even this remarkable spacesuit would not allow his arm to bend quite freely, and the ring eluded his grasps as it pendulumed back and forth.