"As you can see we are rotating about the major axis of this thermos bottle. I'll need star sights to plot our position, which means we have to slow down or stop this thing. Luckily the outer hatch opening faces the direction of motion, so anything ejected from it will slow us down. The more the mass and the greater the speed of ejection, the more retardation we'll get. There isn't much surplus to throw away in one of these capsules, that's why I want your shoes. The temperature controls work fine, so you won't need them. Okay?"
There were no arguments. Their shoes went into the lock along with the empty flask, some of the padding from the wall, and all the other small items that could be accumulated. Chuck sealed the inner hatch and pumped in oxygen from the tanks to raise the pressure as high as possible. When he threw the handle that opened the latch on the outer door, the capsule seemed to start spinning around them and they tumbled together against the wall.
"Sorry," Damian said, reddening as he realized that his arms were around Helen and he was lying on top of her. She smiled as they drifted away from the padding and there was suddenly no up and down as they floated in free fall. Chuck frowned at the stars moving leisurely by the port.
"That should be good enough to get some sightings. If not, we can jettison some more junk."
He undipped his comparison dectant from the holder on his belt and pointed it out of the port, squinting through it. "That is going to take a while," he said, "so relax. With this gadget I can measure the angular distance of up to five astronomical objects; it will remember the angles and its tiny, microminiaturized brain can even do some of the basic computations. But it will still take time. So let's trade confidences, get to know each other, real chummy if you get what I mean. Me, I'm the simple one. Bronx High School, Columbia, the Academy — then the moon run ever since. What about you, Helena? Our limey friend said you were an artiste. A singer? Going to let us have an aria or two?"
Helena compressed her lips. "I am not that sort of artiste. I create— the newest and most expressive art form, light mobiles."
"I've seen them," Chuck said, sighting on another star. "They always hurt my eyes and give me a headache. What about you, Damian, are you a bank robber or an embezzler?"
"Sir!"
"Well don't blame me for asking, not after all that mumbling you were doing about thirty thousand pounds, gone, gone."
Damian clutched his hands together, tightly. "I'm with the British embassy. It was currency, in my charge. I was transferring it back to Earth. Now it's gone…"
Chuck laughed. "Don't be an idiot. It's just paper, it's been destroyed. They'll just write it off and print some more."
Damian smiled sheepishly. "You're right, of course. I never stopped to think of that after the accident. Stupid of me."
"We all have our bad days. Now talk to yourselves for a couple of minutes while I run these figures through the meat grinder."
The conversation lagged while he pecked at the tiny computer. As the first shock of the tragedy faded, the other two began to feel the pressing loneliness of their position. Once they stopped talking the only sound was the almost inaudible hum of the air-circulating fan, and the occasional click of the computer. The naked bulb shone down, the stars drifted by in the blackness of the port. They were warm and comfortable in their capsule. Six feet by twelve feet inside. A container of comfort, one man wide and two men high, packed with the necessities to sustain life. Yet two inches away, on the other side of the insulated wall, was the endless emptiness of space.
"That's that," Chuck said, and slipped the dectant back into its sheath. "Now let's see what the chow is like in this commie canister." The others almost smiled at the welcome hoarseness of his voice.
"What about your figures? Where are we?" Helena asked.
"I have no idea," Chuck said, throwing back a large padded lid in the end of the capsule. "That's not exactly correct. I have a reading that places us somewhere between the Earth and the moon. But I wasn't on the bridge and I have no idea where we were before the explosion. So we'll wait awhile, at least an hour, then I'll shoot some more sights. Comparing the two positions should give us an idea of our course and speed. Anyone thirsty?" He reached in and removed one of the containers of water that were ranked like giant bullets in a clip.
"I will take some, please," Helena said.
"Just suck it through the teat in the end…"
"I have drunk it free fall before, thank you."
"Sorry, sweetheart, I forgot you were an old space hand. Something to eat with it?" He withdrew a flat, brownish package and frowned at it. "Looks like a cardboard deck of cards. Can anyone here read Russian better than I can?"
"I'm sure I can," Helena said, taking the package and glancing at it briefly. "These are latkes, it says so clearly on the outside."
