About that time the second one penetrated. The jolt was sickening. Somerset reported both members of his crew unconscious when their boots let them slide against bulkheads at the impact. Worse, he said the patch equipment had spun loose and shorted, bent, and fused. He made clear any patch repair as being hopeless.
While Hiller listened to the report, he was sick inside his suit from the centrifugal effect. He recalled how he'd also been sick on the Whirlwind ride at the amusement park when he was a kid. A hell of a space commander. They could use a good collision against the direction of gyration any time, provided the sudden deceleration of the twirl didn't hemorrhage them internally.
Why was he worried about gyrations when the patch kit was a casualty? That latest development cinched it: the odds on getting through were falling every minute. He wasn't facing it, either.
One favorable element, however, was appearing: the particles size remained uniformly small. No structural damage of any consequence had occurred from the collisions already experienced. The hull, at least, could sustain the heat and explosion effects.
Subawarely the commander realized his thinking was punchy. The impacts of missiles against the heating ship's hull constituted a slowly fading pattern of noise and pressure and pain which he was observing objectively, almost amusedly. When he attempted to read the damage indicator or communicate with the crew, the effort became immense and the discomfort great. So much easier to remain contemplative about it.
No doubt this was the condition of the crew. After so much beating, the organic function can tolerate no more. Oversight Number Three.
The commander was aware sufficiently to hope Art Eastburn kept the air cooler circulating. He had already assumed, since the crew was suited in, that the engineer had cut off the fresh air supply. They didn't have to lose it all, just most of it, enough to suffocate somewhere in space.
That hunch? Seemed a hunch fitted in there somewhere. Was it really important? Nothing seemed important except escaping the punishment the particles of the Inner Asteroid Belt were inflicting on the near-senseless bodies in the spinning ship.
His thought processes alternately raced and then froze in a semi-conscious sleep. Between impacts rationality awoke in brief segments of contemplative continuity and slowed when another concussion shuddered the ship. And soon there was no rationality but fantasies rooted in present trauma....
Starlight seeped through the punctured hull around the control chamber. The air supply had long since whistled into space. What ship atmosphere that was salvaged had been piped into the suits and rationed among the men.
They had circumnavigated the Inner Belt after plotting a course back to Earth. Hollender's computations presented them with a rough chance of making it before the air would no longer maintain their life processes.
But it had not worked out. The Earth was yet a bright star in the front ports when the coughing began, when the function of respiration became painful labor.
Some were already choosing the quick way out. Hollender had entered the control room, waved a hand in salute, and unzipped his suit, even as Hiller watched. The instant freezing from the space-filled ship bloated the body slightly, but otherwise there was little difference. Hollender stood statuesquely, coldly rigid, clamped solidly by his boots.
Art Eastburn arrived next, unsmiling. The two men regarded each other, chests heaving, for an endless moment. The mechanical engineer reached for his suit zipper.
"Art, hold on! Not yet, Art, not yet!"
"Not what, Fred? Come out of it, man!"
Eastburn was standing over him, speaking against the plastiglas of Hiller's visor. He sat before the control board, still cinched in his seat. The mechanical engineer wore no suit and he was smiling.
"We're through," his friend was saying. "We made it, Fred."
The ship commander shook his head. The words were supposed to mean something vital. He played them back in his mind.
"We're through. We're through."
If he could understand why the silence hurt his ears, why he was tense, why—Realization spread over his body in a wave of exhilarating relief.
Speech failed him after Art helped him remove his suit. Speech was unnecessary the way Art rapidly filled him in on the lack of casualties and minor damage.
"How long was I out?" the commander at last brought himself to ask, noticing Bleck's body had been removed.
"Over an hour," Art answered. "When the rocks stopped punching I couldn't raise you on the intercom. Found you passed out. You wouldn't revive so I took advantage of my second-in-command rank and straightened out the ship's spin with the guide jets."
Hiller glanced at the ports. The stars rode steadily, and he was aware his viscera felt stable.
"But dammit, Art, all this air!" Hiller complained, waving his hand over his head. "Aren't you over-generous? We must have lost enough through the hull to put us in suits, or at least turn us back."
The engineer grinned teasingly. "I don't think we've lost a cubic inch, Fred."
"The patch kit?"
"Still out."
"But all those penetrations with us in a twirl—"
"All taken care of." Art was enjoying himself.
Hiller's hunch, never considered seriously, jumped back into his mind. That had to be the only explanation.
Art was going on, "As a matter of fact, there's a good example right there." He pointed above them to the bulkhead, layered with plastic, a coolant area, and duralite, that separated the men from space. "One of the toughest hits the ship took, blasted an inch-round hole, looks like. No wonder you conked out."
The after effects of the experience again was making it difficult for the commander to focus his eyes. He unbound his seat bands and clanked directly under the spot, his friend following.
From the closer viewpoint he could see a small, glistening white circle in the bulkhead surrounded by a ring of heat-discolored metal. That was no patch.
He grinned back at Art. "Automatic, eh?"
"I never considered the possibility," Art replied. "I figured the inside pressure would be too great."
"I'm not trying to sound off big," the commander said, "but I had it in the back of my mind when I decided to sail through. As it turned out, it meant the difference between survival or otherwise. Had I known that, I might not have gambled."
Fred Hiller returned to his seat and pushed himself down. His strength was only beginning to return.
"With a bigger hole, it wouldn't have worked. But I was counting on little holes with our strong hull. It would take more pressure than what's inside the ship to stop the instant freeze of space cold in small openings like that.
"I think our frozen air plugs will hold way longer than it takes to repair the patch kit. Matter of fact, I may leave them in until we hit Mars' atmosphere. I'm feeling sentimental about them already!"