‘There it is!’ Pollux was standing watch on the radar screen; his yelp brought his grandmother floating over.
‘More likely a flock of geese,’ she commented, ‘Where?’
‘Right there. Can’t you see it?’
Hazel grudgingly conceded that the blip might be real. The next several hours were spent in measuring distance, bearing, and relative motion by radar and doppler and in calculating the cheapest maneuver to let them match with the errant bicycles, baggage, and books. Roger Stone took it as easily as he could, being hurried somewhat by the growing nearness of Mars. He finally settled them almost dead in space relative to the floating junk pile, with a slight drift which would bring them within three hundred yards of the mass — so he calculated — at closest approach a few hours hence.
They spent the waiting time figuring the maneuvers to rendezvous with Mars. The Rolling Stone would not, of course, land on Mars but at the port on Phobos. First they must assume an almost circular ellipse around Mars matching with Phobos, then as a final maneuver they must settle the ship on the tiny moon — simple maneuvers made fussy by one thing only; Phobos has a period of about ten hours; the Stone would have to arrive not only at the right place with the right speed and direction, but also at the right time. After the bicycles were taken aboard the ship would have to be nursed along while still fairly far out if she were to fall to an exact rendezvous.
Everybody worked on it but Buster, Meade working under Hazel’s tutelage. Pollux continued to check by radar their approach to their cargo. Roger Stone had run through and discarded two trial solutions and was roughing out another which, at last, seemed to be making sense when Pollux announced that his latest angulation of the radar data showed that they were nearly as close as they would get.
His father unstrapped himself and floated to a port. ‘Where is it? Good heavens, we’re practically sitting on it. Let’s get busy, boys.’
‘I’m coming, too,’ announced Hazel.
‘Me, too!’ agreed Lowell.
Meade reached out and snagged him. ‘That’s what you think, Buster. You and Sis are going to play a wonderful game called, “What’s for dinner?” Have fun, folks.’ She headed aft, towing the infant against his opposition.
Outside the bicycles looked considerably farther away. Cas glanced at the mass and said. ‘Maybe I ought to go across on my suit jet, Dad? It would save time.’
‘I strongly doubt it. Try the heaving line, Pol.’ Pollux snapped the light messenger line to a padeye. Near the weighted end had been fastened a half a dozen large hooks fashioned of 6-gauge wire. His first heave seemed to be strong enough but it missed the cluster by a considerable margin,
‘Let me have it, Pol,’ Castor demanded.
‘Let him be,’ ordered their father. ‘So help me, this is the last time I’m going into space without a proper line-throwing gun. Make note of that, Cas. Put it on the shopping list when we go inside.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’
The second throw was seen to hit the mass, but when Pol heaved in the line came away, the hooks having failed to catch. He tried again. This time the floating line came taut.
‘Easy, now!’ his father cautioned. ‘We don’t want a bunch of bikes in our lap. There — ‘vast heaving. She’s started.’ They waited.
Castor became impatient and suggested that they give the line another tug. His father shook his head. Hazel added, ‘I saw a green hand at the space station try to hurry a load that way. Steel plate, it was.’
‘What happened?’
‘He had started it with a pull; he thought he could stop it with a shove. They had to amputate both legs but they saved his life.’ Castor shut up.
A few minutes later the disorderly mass touched down, bending a handlebar of one bike that got pinched but with no other damage. The twins and Hazel swarmed over the mass, working free on their safety lines and clicking on with their boots only to pass bicycles into the hold, where Roger Stone stowed them according to his careful mass distribution schedule.