Lucifer's Hammer

“We are docked with Hammerlab. It is safe to approach. Over.”

“Apollo, this is Sovuz. By ‘Hammerlab’ do you mean Spacelab Two, interrogative? Over.”

Baker said. “Affirmative.”

Delanty was aware that he was using too much fuel. No one but a perfectionist would have noticed that; the maneuver was well within the error program devised by Houston. But Rick Delanty cared.

Eventually they were stable: Apollo, its nose buried in the docking port in one end of the garbage can that was Hammerlab, both now stable in space, not wobbling and not tumbling. The Apollo led, at 25,000 feet per second: Baker and Delanty, ass-backward around the Earth each ninety minutes.

“Done,” Rick said. “Now let’s watch them try.”

“Rojj,” Baker said. He activated a camera system. There was a cable co

“That big mother better not have forgotten the lunch,” Delanty said. “Or it will get hungry up here.”

“Yep.” Baker continued to watch.

The Soyuz was vital to the Hammerlab mission. It had brought up most of the consumables. Hammerlab was packed with instruments and film and experiments; but there was food and water and air for only a few days. They needed SOYUZ to stay for Hamner-Brown’s approach.

“Maybe it will anyway,” Joh

Watching was painful.

SOYUZ floundered like a dead whale in the tide. It nosed violently toward the camera and shied as violently back. It edged sideways, stopped — almost; tried again and drifted away.

“And that’s their best pilot,” Baker muttered.

“I didn’t look too good myself—”

“Bullshit. You had a tumbling target. We’re as stable as a streetcar.” Baker watched a few moments more and shook his head. “Not their fault, of course. Control systems. We’ve got the onboard computers. They don’t. But it’s a bloody damned shame.”

Rick Delanty’s mahogany face wrinkled. “Don’t know I can take much more of this, Joh

It was excruciating for both of them. It made the fingers flex, itching to take over. Back-seat drivers are formed by such tensions.

“And he’s got the lunch,” Baker said. “When’s he going to give up?”

They entered darkness. Communications with Soyuz were limited to official messages. When they came into the light again, the Soviet craft approached once more.

“It’s going to get hungry up here,” Delanty said.

“Shut up.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Fuck you.”

“Not possible in a full pressure suit.”

They watched again. Eventually Jakov called: “We are wasting needed fuel. Request Plan B.”

“Soyuz, roger, stand by to implement Plan B,” Baker said with visible relief. He winked at Delanty. “Now show the commies what a real American can do.”

Plan B was officially an emergency measure, but all the American mission pla

Delanty was flying a spacecraft and a big, clumsy, massive tin can. (Now picture an aircraft carrier trying to maneuver under a descending airplane.) But he also had the world’s most sophisticated computer system, attitude controls painstakingly turned out by master machinists with thousands of hours’ experience, instruments developed in a dozen laboratories accustomed to making precision instruments.

“Houston, Houston, Plan B under way,” Baker reported.

And now the whole damned world’s watching me. Or listening, Rick Delanty thought. And if I blow it…

That was unthinkable.

“Relax,” Baker said.

He didn’t offer to do it himself, Delanty thought. Well. Here goes. Just like on the simulator.

It was. One straight thrust; check just before contact, and a tiny pulse of the jets to move the two crafts together. Again the mechanical feel of contact, and simultaneously the flare of green lights on the board.

“Latch it,” Rick said.

“Soyuz, we are docked, latch the docking probe,” Baker called.

“Apollo, affirmative. We are locked on.”

“Last one inside’s a rotten egg,” Baker said.

They shook hands, formally, all around, as they floated inside the big tin can. A historic occasion, the commentators were saying below; but Baker couldn’t think of any historic words to say.

There was just too damned much to do. This wasn’t a spectacular, a handshake in space like Apollo-Soyuz. This was a working mission, with a hairy schedule that they probably couldn’t keep up with, even with luck.

And yet… Baker had the urge to laugh. He might have if it wouldn’t have needed so many explanations. He would have laughed at how good they all looked.

God bless us, there’s none like us. Leonilla Alexandrovna — Malik was darkly beautiful. With her imperious self-confidence she could have played a czarina, but her smooth, hard muscles would better have fitted her for the prima ballerina’s role. A cold and lovely woman.

Heartbreaker, Joh

Brigadier Pieter Ivanovitch Jakov, Hero of the People (which class? Baker wondered), the perfect man to illustrate an enlistment poster. Handsome, well muscled, cold eyes: He looked a lot like Joh

Pour of us, fully mature specimens in the prime of athletic good health — and photogenic as hell to boot. Pity that Randall fellow from NBS isn’t here to take a group picture. But he’ll get one. Eventually.

They floated at strange angles to each other, and shifted as in vagrant breezes, smiling at nothing. Even for Baker and Jakov it was exhilarating, and they’d been up before. For Rick and Leonilla it was sheer heaven. They tended to drift toward the viewports and stare at the stars and Earth.

“Did you bring the lunch?” Delanty asked.

Leonilla smiled. The smile was cold. “Of course. I think you will enjoy it. But I will not harm Comrade Jakov’s surprise.”

“First we have to find a place to eat it,” Baker said. He looked around the crowded capsule.

It was crammed with gear. Electronics bolted to the bulkheads. Styrofoam packing around amorphous lumps suspended on yellow nylon strapping. Plastic boxes, racks of equipment, canisters of film, microscopes, a disassembled telescope, tool kits and soldering irons. There were multiple copies of diagrams that showed where everything was stowed, and Baker and Delanty had drilled until they could literally lay their hands on any item in total darkness; but it made for crowding and gave no sense of order.

“We can eat in the Soyuz,” Leonilla suggested. “It is packed, but…” She waved helplessly.

“It is not what we have been given to expect,” Jakov said. “I have spoken to Baikunyar, and we are now on our own for a few hours until we can deploy the solar wings. But I suggest we eat first.”

“What’s not what you’ve been given to expect?” Delanty asked.

“This.” Jakov waved expressively.

John Baker laughed. “There wasn’t time to do any real pla