The Krone Experiment

When he could find no more cables intact, he backed out of the hole very slowly so as not to catch his suit. When only his upper torso remained inside, he hooked an elbow around one of the laser braces so that he had a firm hold that would not tire his hands. The centrifugal force tugged his legs straight away from the satellite.

'Larry?'

'Oh, thank god!' Wahlquist's relief came to Jupp as a palpable force over the intercom. 'I wanted to call you but was afraid to spoil your concentration. Control is frantic. I cut them off from you too.'

'Sorry, it must have been rough on you just sitting. I think I've disabled it. I cut the power lines.'

'Control says it's probably nuclear powered. Did you go inside?'

'Yeah, I had to, but only for a little while. I'm fine.' An extended silence echoed with Wahlquist's doubt. Then he spoke. 'Now what?'

'I sure want to get back home. How'd you like to play catcher?'

'How's that?'

'I had to jettison the backpack to get inside. I want you to jockey the bird around where I can just jump into the bay. Can you do that?'

Jupp heard the forced bravado.

'If you can pitch it, I can catch it.'

'Great! Are you at the controls?'

'Yep. I've been feeling around; I'm into it. Talk to me.'

'You're about forty-five degrees from my plane of rotation. This polecat was trying to get you in its sights again, by the way.'

'Thanks, podnuh.'

'Anytime. Let's start simple. Give me a little port roll to get the plane of your wings perpendicular to my rotation. Not too much. Smidgen to the right. Wait'll I go around to get another good look. Just a hair to the left. Okay, that looks pretty good. We'll tune it up later. Now let's see if we can get a parallel lateral shift to the right. You want to hit the front and the rear left thrusters by just the same amount. No. Too much nose! You're moving but spi

Jupp had realized throughout this exercise that they would never get a perfect alignment, with Wahlquist having no direct visual feedback. They might stop the spin of the shuttle, or the drift, but to get them both stabilized at once was asking too much. He could maximize his chances, but he was still going to have to hit a moving target from a merry-go-round. And he was the projectile.

He spent a few more minutes with Wahlquist until they seemed to have the drift minimized. The shuttle passed before his eyes once every twenty seconds, its open bay yawning a welcome to him. The craft hovered a little below him but had a slight upward drift. It was also in a slow clockwise spin from his perspective. He pla

He waited until the shuttle was pointed with its long axis along his plane of rotation so that he had the best chance of landing in the bay. He worked his body around until his feet were under him. He crouched on the side of the Cosmos and held onto a brace with one hand behind him, like an ungainly swimmer about to begin a race. He waited a minute, three more revolutions, and then as he saw the tail of the shuttle come into view to his extreme left, he pushed off.

He immediately sensed his error, and the panic of falling gripped him again. He had concentrated so hard on timing his leap to the rotation that he had not paid enough attention to pushing straight off from the side of the satellite. He had pushed himself slightly upward, exactly the wrong thing to do with the shuttle a little below him. He felt as if the shuttle were drifting downward, even as he rocketed towards it, arms and legs flailing wildly in ungrippable space. He began to tumble, and as he caught occasional glimpses of the shuttle, he could see the edge of the bay drop below his inexorable path. He steeled himself to see the shuttle float by, his last co

The blow nearly took his breath away, a surprisingly painful rap from his left shoulder blade to his right kidney. As he bounced back, he caught a twisting view of the bay rotating in his line of sight, and then a pole. He spreadeagled, reaching for his life. His left arm and leg hit it; he swung his right arm around, reaching, clawing, grabbing, bugging. And then he was still, legs tightly wrapped around the manipulating boom, his arms clasping it to his bosom. He closed his eyes and listened to the pounding of his heart, racing as never before. The sweat ran stinging rivulets into his eyes, clinched though they were. At last he opened them and looked around. The clamshell door. He had missed the cargo bay, but had collided with the edge of the extended door. He looked at the boom immediately before his eyes. Had it not been for the plastic barrier of his faceplate, he would have kissed it.

He tried to speak, choked, and then tried again.

'Larry?'

'You okay?'

'I'm home. Don't go away; I'll be right in.'

'Hot damn!'

Jupp shi

Finally Jupp felt control return. He held Wahlquist off at arm's length.

'Okay, buddy, we've got work to do. Let's bag that bird and get out of here.'

He guided Wahlquist to the copilot's seat and then settled into the comfortable familiarity of the pilot's seat. He jockeyed the thrusters and loved every response of his craft. He loved his eye-hand coordination, and he loved the total absence of the terrible repellant artificial gravity that dwelt on the object out his window.

He manoeuvred the shuttle until it was beneath the Cosmos once more, craning to see through the window over his head to position the boom. When he was satisfied, he moved to the boom controls at the rear of the flight deck. He released a catch and watched the life-saving mirror drift off to join the other detritus of their mission. Then he raised the boom until it was just beneath the Cosmos. He flipped the switch and set the rotatable stanchion on the end of the boom spi

Now for the tedious part. He had to slowly decrease the speed of the claw. Too fast and he could snap the boom or the brace in the Cosmos with equally disastrous results if the spi