The following morning he reported to base for the forty-eight-hour examination and sweat period that preceded all flights. His physical system was tuned to maximum potentiality by the doctors while he was briefed on the flight. It was to be the longest yet, and the most important.
"A long trip," the briefing officer said, tapping the chart, "to Jupiter — or rather the eighth satellite. One of the retrograde ones. There is a base and an observatory there now, as you know, but a new bunch of observers are going out. Astrophysicists to do work with Jupiter's gravity. Twelve of them and all their equipment. That's quite a load. Your main concern — or rather II's — will be the asteroid belt. You can't get too far away from the ecliptic so you may contact meteoric debris. We've had some trouble that way already. With a little luck you should complete a successful flight."
Jon shook hands with the passengers when they came aboard and checked the technicians when they sealed the freeze chambers. When everything was secured he climbed an internal companionway to the control room. This was the point where he always held back a bit. Once he pushed open the door he was committed. It was the last act of free will he had, then Jon II took over. He hesitated only a second, then pushed the door open, thinking to himself, Next stop, Jupiter.
Only it wasn't Jupiter, it was pain.
He couldn't see and he couldn't hear. A thousand sensations were forced on him at once. They added up to pain. Bigger, redder and more horrifying than he ever thought possible. It took an effort of will to blink his eyes and try to focus them.
In front of him was the viewpoint and beyond it was the stars. He was in space, in the cabin of the ship. For an instant he almost forgot the pain at the sight of the stars spread out before him. Then the pain was back and he was trying to understand what had happened, wanting to do something to end the torment. The cabin was dark, the only illumination the lights on the giant control boards. They flickered and changed, he had no idea of their meaning or what to do.
Then the pain was too much and he screamed and lost consciousness.
In the few moments Jon I had been in command of their body, Jon II had drained away a little of his panic. He had lost control and blacked out. He couldn't let it happen again. Neural blocks cut off a good deal of the pain, but enough seeped through to interfere with his thinking. A meteorite — it must have been a meteorite.
There was a fist-sized opening in the front bulkhead, and air was roaring out through the gap. He could see a single star through the hole, brighter and clearer than any star he had ever seen before. The meteorite had made that hole, then hit the wall behind him. That must have been the explosion and the glare when it vaporized. It had done a lot of damage, sprayed molten metal all over him and destroyed the circuits in his chair pedestal. It was getting hard to breathe, the air was almost gone. And cold.
The spacesuit was in its locker, just ten feet away. Only the straps that held him in the chair couldn't be opened. The electric release was destroyed, the mechanical release jammed. He struggled with the clasps, but he only had his bare hands.
All the time it was getting harder to breathe. The panic was there again and he could no longer fight it away.
Jon II gasped and his eyes closed. Jon I opened them.
The pain was overwhelming and washed over him instantly. Jon's eyes closed again and his body slumped forward.
Then he straightened and jerkily the eyelids opened. For a moment his eyeballs rolled unsteadily, then fixed. They looked straight ahead and were almost vacant of anything like reason.
For Jon III was closer to the basic animal than any man or animal that had ever walked the Earth. Survive was the only thing he knew. Survive and save the ship. He was dimly aware of Jon I and Jon II and could call on their memories if he needed to. He had no memories or thoughts of his own — except pain. Born in pain and doomed forever to live in pain, his whole world was pain.
Jon III was a built-in safety device, an admission that there might be times when even the II personality of a pilot couldn't save the ship. Only in the last extreme, when all else had failed, could the III personality assume control.
There was nothing at all subtle about Jon Ill's control. See a problem — solve the problem. The memory, still in his forebrain, was Get the spacesuit. He started to stand up, then realized for the first time he couldn't. With both hands he pulled against the strap across his chest, but it didn't break. The clasp was the answer; he had to open that.
No tools, just his hands. Use his hands. He put one finger inside the clasp and pulled. The finger bent, stretched and broke. Jon III felt no pain at all, no emotion. He put his second finger in and tugged again. The second finger was almost pulled off, and hung only by a Piece of flesh. He put in the third finger.
