Pollux tapped his arm and put his helmet in contact with Castor’s. ‘Anything?’
‘Just chatter.’
‘Keep trying. We’ll stay out until we find them. Want me to spell you?’
‘No. If we don’t find them. I’m not going back.’
‘Quit being a cheap hero and listen. Or give me that loop.’
City Hall dropped astern until it was no longer a shape — Castor at last reluctantly gave over the watch to Pollux. His twin had been at it for perhaps ten minutes when he suddenly made motions waving them to silence even though he could not have heard them in any case. Castor spoke to him helmet to helmet. ‘What is it?’
‘Sounded like a kid crying. Might have been Buster.’
‘Where?’
‘I’ve lost it I tried to get a minimum. Now I can’t raise it’
Charlie, anticipating what would be needed, had swung ship as soon as he had quit accelerating. Now he blasted back as much as he had accelerated, bringing them dead in space relative to City Hall and the node. He gave it a gentle extra bump to send them cruising slowly back the way they had come. Pollux listened, slowly swinging his loop. Castor strained his eyes, trying to see something, anything, other than the cold stars.
‘Got it again!’ Pollux pounded his brother.
Old Charlie killed their relative motion; waited. Pollux cautiously tried for a minimum, then swung the loop, and tried again. He pointed, indicating that it had to be one of two directions, a hundred and eighty degrees apart.
‘Which way?’ Castor asked Charlie.
‘Over that way.’
‘I can’t see anything.’
‘Me neither. I got a hunch.’
Castor did not argue. Either direction was equally likely.
Charlie gunned it hard in the direction he had picked, roughly toward Vega. He had hardly cut the gun and let it coast in free fall when Pollux was nodding vigorously. They coasted for some minutes, with Pollux reporting the signal stronger and the minimum sharper … but still nothing in sight Castor longed for radar. By now he could hear crying in his own phones. It could he Buster — it must be Buster.
‘There she is!’
It was Charlie’s shout. Castor could not see anything, even though old Charlie pointed it out to him. At last he got it — a point of light, buried in stars. Pollux unplugged from the compass when it was clear that what they saw was a mass, not a star, and in the proper direction. Old Charlie handled his craft as casually as a bicycle, bringing them up to it fast and killing his headway so that they were dead with it. He insisted on making the jump himself. Lowell was too hysterical to be coherent. Seeing that he was alive and not hurt, they turned at once to Hazel. She was still strapped in her seat, eyes open, a charateristic half-smile on her face. But she neither greeted them nor answered.
Charlie looked at her and shook his head. ‘Not a chance, boys. She ain’t even wearing an oxy bottle.’
Nevertheless they hooked a bottle to her suit — Castor’s bottle; no one had thought to bring a spare. The twins went back cross-connected on what was left in Pollux’s bottle, temporarily Siamese twins. The family scooter they left in orbit, to he picked up and towed in by someone else. Charlie used almost all his fuel on the way back, gunning as high a speed as he dared while still saving boost to brake them at City Hall.
They shouted the news all the way back. Somewhere along the line someone picked up their signal; passed it along.
They took her into Fries’ store, there being more room there. Mrs Fries pushed the twins aside and applied artificial respiration herself, to be displaced ten minutes later by Dr Stone. She used the free-fall method without strapping down, placing herself behind Hazel and rhythmically squeezing her ribs with both arms.
It seemed that all of Rock City wanted to come inside. Fries chased them out, and, for the first time in history, barred the door to his store. After a while Dr Stone swapped off with her husband, then took back the task after only a few minutes’ rest