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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Satellite System, by Horace Brown Fyfe
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Satellite System
+
+Author: Horace Brown Fyfe
+
+Illustrator: Summers
+
+Release Date: September 14, 2009 [EBook #29990]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SATELLITE SYSTEM ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                         Transcriber's Note:
+
+ This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction October 1960.
+ Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on
+ this publication was renewed.
+
+
+                              SATELLITE
+
+                                SYSTEM
+
+
+                            By H. B. FYFE
+
+
+         _Fyfe's quite right ... there's nothing like a satellite
+          system for a cold storage arrangement. Keeps things handy,
+          but out of the way...._
+
+                        Illustrated by Summers
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Having released the netting of his bunk, George Tremont floated
+himself out. He ran his tongue around his mouth and grimaced.
+
+"Wonder how long I slept ... feels like too long," he muttered. "Well,
+they would have called me."
+
+The "cabin" was a ninety-degree wedge of a cylinder hardly eight feet
+high. From one end of its outer arc across to the other was just over
+ten feet, so that it had been necessary to bevel two corners of the
+hinged, three-by-seven bunk to clear the sides of the wedge. Lockers
+flattened the arc behind the bunk.
+
+Tremont maneuvered himself into a vertical position in the eighteen
+inches between the bunk and a flat surface that cut off the point of
+the wedge. He stretched out an arm to remove towel and razor from one
+of the lockers, then carefully folded the bunk upward and hooked it
+securely in place.
+
+With room to turn now, he swung around and slid open a double door in
+the flat surface, revealing a shaft three feet square whose center was
+also the theoretical intersection of his cabin walls. Tremont pulled
+himself into the shaft. From "up" forward, light leaked through a
+partly open hatch, and he could hear a murmur of voices as he
+jackknifed in the opposite direction.
+
+"At least two of them are up there," he grunted.
+
+He wondered which of the other three cabins was occupied, meanwhile
+pulling himself along by the ladder rungs welded to one corner of the
+shaft. He reached a slightly wider section aft, which boasted
+entrances to two air locks, a spacesuit locker, a galley, and a head.
+He entered the last, noting the murmur of air-conditioning machinery
+on the other side of the bulkhead.
+
+Tremont hooked a foot under a toehold to maintain his position facing
+a mirror. He plugged in his razor, turned on the exhauster in the slot
+below the mirror to keep the clippings out of his eyes, and began to
+shave. As the beard disappeared, he considered the deals he had come
+to Centauri to put through.
+
+"A funny business!" he told his image. "Dealing in ideas! Can you
+really sell a man's thoughts?"
+
+Beginning to work around his chin, he decided that it actually was
+practical. Ideas, in fact, were almost the only kind of import worth
+bringing from Sol to Alpha Centauri. Large-scale shipments of
+necessities were handled by the Federated Governments. To carry even
+precious or power metals to Earth or to return with any type of
+manufactured luxury was simply too expensive in money, fuel, effort,
+and time.
+
+On the other hand, traveling back every five years to buy up plans and
+licenses for the latest inventions or processes--_that_ was profitable
+enough to provide a good living for many a man in Tremont's business.
+All he needed were a number of reliable contacts and a good knowledge
+of the needs of the three planets and four satellites colonized in
+the Centaurian system.
+
+Only three days earlier, Tremont had returned from his most recent
+trip to the old star, landing from the great interstellar ship on the
+outer moon of Centauri VII. There he leased this small rocket--the
+_Annabel_, registered more officially as the AC7-4-525--for his local
+traveling. It would be another five days before he reached the
+inhabited moons of Centauri VI.
+
+He stopped next in the galley for a quick breakfast out of tubes,
+regretting the greater convenience of the starship, then returned the
+towel and razor to his cabin. He decided that his slightly rumpled
+shirt and slacks of utilitarian gray would do for another day. About
+thirty-eight, an inch or two less than six feet and muscularly slim,
+Tremont had an air of habitual neatness. His dark hair, thinning at
+the temples, was clipped short and brushed straight back. There were
+smile wrinkles at the corners of his blue eyes and grooving his lean
+cheeks.
+
+He closed the cabin doors and pulled himself forward to enter the
+control room through the partly open hatch. The forward bulkhead
+offered no more head room than did his own cabin, but there seemed to
+be more breathing space because this chamber was not quartered. Deck
+space, however, was at such a premium because of the controls,
+acceleration couches, and astrogating equipment that the hatch was the
+largest clear area.
+
+Two men and a girl turned startled eyes upon Tremont as he rose into
+their view. One of the men, about forty-five but sporting a youngish
+manner to match his blond crewcut and tanned features, glanced quickly
+at his wrist watch.
+
+"Am I too early?" demanded Tremont with sudden coldness. "What are you
+doing with my case there?"
+
+The girl, in her early twenties and carefully pretty with her long
+black hair neatly netted for space, snatched back a small hand from
+the steel strongbox that was shaped to fit into an attache case. The
+second man, under thirty but thick-waisted in a gray tee-shirt, said
+in the next breath, "Take him!"
+
+Too late, Tremont saw that the speaker had already braced a foot
+against the far bulkhead. Then the broad face with its crooked blob of
+a nose above a ridiculous little mustache shot across the chamber at
+him. Desperately, Tremont groped for a hold that would help him either
+to avoid the charge or to pull himself back into the shaft, but he was
+caught half in and half out.
+
+He met the rush with a fist, but the tangle of bodies immediately
+became confusing beyond belief as the other pair joined in.
+
+Something cracked across the back of his head, much too hard to have
+been accidental.
+
+When Tremont began to function again, it took him only a few seconds
+to realize that life had been going on without him for some little
+time.
+
+For one thing, the heavy man's nosebleed had stopped, and he was
+tenderly combing blood from his mustache with a fingertip.
+
+For another, they had managed to stuff Tremont into a spacesuit and
+haul him down the shaft to the air lock. Someone had noosed the thumbs
+of the gauntlets together and tied the cord to the harness supporting
+the air tanks.
+
+Tremont twisted his head around to eye the three of them without
+speaking. He was trying to decide where he had made his mistake.
+
+Bill Braigh, the elderly youth with the crewcut? Ralph Peters, the
+pilot who had come with the ship? Dorothy Stauber, the trim brunette
+who had made the trip from Earth on the same starship as Tremont? He
+could not make up his mind without more to go on.
+
+Then he remembered with a sinking sensation that _all_ of them had
+been clustered about his case of papers and microfilms when he had
+interrupted them.
+
+"I trust you aren't thinking of making us any trouble, Tremont,"
+drawled Braigh. "Give up the idea; you've been no trouble at all."
+
+"Where do you think this is getting you?" demanded Tremont.
+
+Braigh chuckled.
+
+"Wherever it would have gotten you," he said. "Only at less expense."
+
+"Ask him for the combination," growled Peters.
+
+Braigh scrutinized Tremont's expression.
+
+"It would probably take us a while, Ralph," he decided regretfully.
+"It's simpler to put him outside now and be free to use tools on the
+box."
+
+Tremont opened his mouth to protest, but Braigh clapped the helmet
+over his head and screwed it fast.
+
+"You'll never read the code!" yelled Tremont, struggling to break
+free. "Those papers are no good to you without me!"
+
+Someone slammed him against the bulkhead and held him there with his
+face to it. He could do nothing with his hands, joined as they were,
+and very little with his feet. It dawned upon him that they could not
+hear a word, and he fell silent. Twisting his head to peer out the
+side curve of his vision band, he caught a glimpse of Peters suiting
+up.
+
+A few minutes later, they opened the inner hatch of the air lock and
+shoved Tremont inside. Peters followed, gripping him firmly about the
+knees from behind.
+
+"Here we go!" grunted Peters, and Tremont realized that he could
+communicate again, over their suit radios.
+
+"You won't get far, trying to read the code I have those papers
+written in," he warned. "You'd better talk this over before you make a
+mistake."
+
+"Ain't no mistake about it," said Peters, pressing toward the outer
+hatch. "So you chartered the rocket. You felt you oughta go out to see
+about a heavy dust particle hitting the hull. You fell off an' we
+never found you."
+
+"How will you explain not going yourself? Or not finding me by
+instruments?"
+
+Peters clubbed Tremont's foot from the tank rack he had hooked with
+the toe.
+
+"How could I go? Leave the ship without a pilot? An' the screens are
+for pickin' up meteorites far enough out to mean somethin' at the
+speeds they travel. So you were too close to register, leastways till
+it was way too late. You must have suffocated when your air ran out."
+
+Tremont scrabbled about with his feet for some kind of hold. The outer
+hatch began to open. He could see stars out there.
+
+"Wait!" shouted Tremont.
+
+It was too late. He felt himself shoot forward as if Peters had thrust
+a foot into the small of his back and shoved. Tremont tried to grab at
+the edge of the air lock, but it was gone. A puff of air frosted about
+him, its human bullet.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The stars spun slowly before his eyes. After a moment, the gleaming
+hull of the _Annabel_ swam into his field of view. It was already
+thirty feet away and the air lock was closing. He caught a glimpse of
+a spacesuited figure with the light behind it.
+
+Then he was looking at the stars again.
+
+The small, distant brilliance of Alpha Centauri made him squint in the
+split second before the suit's photoelectric cells caused filters to
+flip down before his eyes. Then it was stars again, and the filters
+retracted.
+
+"They can't do this!" said Tremont. "_Peters!_ Do you hear me? You
+can't get away with this!"
+
+There was no answer.
+
+The rocket came into view again, farther away. He had to get back
+somehow. Forgetting the bound position of his hands, he attempted to
+check his belt equipment. Holding his arms as far as possible from his
+body was not enough to let him get a look at the harness from within
+his helmet.
+
+He tugged violently at the cord holding the thumbs of his gauntlets,
+and thought it gave slightly.
+
+_Maybe it just tightened_, he thought.
+
+To free his hands, he drew his arms in through the wide armpits of the
+suit sleeves, built that way to enable the wearer to feed himself,
+wipe his brow, or adjust clothing or heating units within the suit. He
+felt more comfortable but that got him nowhere except for the chance
+to consult his wrist watch.
+
+Set at the lunar time of Centauri VII-4, it told him that when he had
+gone out of the airlock five minutes before the time had been 17:36.
+It did not strike Tremont as being a very promising bit of
+data--warning him merely that when he began to feel the want of air,
+it would be about 21:30. He longed for a pen-knife.
+
+"_There's_ one thing I'm going to ask about on my next trip to Sol--if
+I make one!" he muttered. "Has anyone developed a reliable, small
+_suit_ air lock, so you can pass things out from your pockets?"
+
+He thrust his hands once more into the arms of the suit, and felt as
+far along his belt as he could. He did manage to reach the usual
+position of the standard rocket pistol. The hook was empty.
+
+"Well, that's that!" he groaned. "They didn't forget. I have nothing
+to maneuver with."
+
+He pondered worriedly. Perhaps the air--if he dared to waste any, it
+would make a small jet. Slow, but he had all the rest of his life!
+
+He settled down to picking at the cord about his thumbs with the tips
+of the other fingers in his gauntlets. It seemed possible that he
+might in time chew it up to the point where it could be snapped.
+
+The stars streamed slowly past his line of vision as he spun through
+the emptiness. Two or three little bits of the cord chipped off and
+drifted away. Tremont realized that it was frozen and brittle. He
+redoubled his efforts. After a few minutes of clumsy clicking of
+fingertips against thumbs, he strained to pull his hands apart.
+
+The cord parted and his arms jerked out to their full spread with such
+suddenness that he felt his backbone creak. For a moment, he hung
+motionless inside his suit, wondering if he had hurt himself.
+
+Recovering, he groped about, checking for his equipment. He discovered
+that nothing had been left. No knife, no rocket pistol, no line with
+magnet for securing oneself to a hull.
+
+_Well, at least I can reach the valves of the air tanks_, he reassured
+himself.
+
+He watched for the ship, so as to judge his direction. Several minutes
+passed before he allowed himself to recognize the truth of his
+situation: he could no longer see the gleam of Alpha Centauri on the
+hull!
+
+He was already too far out to dare to waste air. He might give away
+his last four hours of life just to send himself in the wrong
+direction.
+
+"How did I get myself into this?" he groaned.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He set himself to thinking back to his meetings with the others.
+Dorothy Stauber had landed from the same starship after passage from
+Sol, but he had not become acquainted with her during the trip except
+to pass the time of day. He seemed to remember that she had turned up
+in the Customs dome to ask his advice on travel....
+
+"Ye-ah!" he growled to himself. "_After_ I phoned to lease a rocket.
+She must have known, but how?"
+
+Someone in the shipping office? Well, why not Peters, the pilot? And
+then Braigh had come along, pretending to have been on his way back to
+Centauri VI and hoping to buy a fast passage on a small vessel for
+business reasons. He had been free and ready with his money, leading
+Tremont to consider cutting his own expenses on the charter.
+
+It seemed, on the face of it, that the three of them had never met
+until the _Annabel_ lifted.
+
+"But they had, all right!" Tremont told himself. "That was no chance,
+anywhere along the line. I've been very neatly highjacked!"
+
+The girl must have trailed him to make sure they picked up the right
+man. Braigh had never explained exactly what he was doing on the
+satellite; he could have arranged for the assignment of the rocket, or
+perhaps of the pilot, when Tremont called. Then they had gathered
+around to hitch rides, and had been in control ever since.
+
+Tremont looked at the slowly progressing constellations and cursed
+himself. He began to have the feeling that there would be no way out
+of this. They would regret pitching him into space in such an offhand
+manner, he reminded himself, when they opened his case. It would be
+too late as far as he was concerned.
+
+_Come to think of it_, he considered, _that Braigh looks pretty smart,
+under that idiot-kid pose. He might just break my code, given time.
+And the parts made up of model photos or drawings he can sell almost
+as is._
+
+When he came to think of it, Tremont was surprised that no one had
+tried the same racket before. He had laid out a fortune for what the
+three thieves were stealing from him.
+
+He drew in his left arm again and raised the wrist to the neck of his
+helmet. By looking down his nose, he discovered to his surprise that
+he had been out nearly an hour. He had wasted more time than he
+thought in reviewing his earlier encounters with Dorothy aboard the
+starship and the others at the spaceport.
+
+He raised the water tube to his mouth and sucked in a mouthful. The
+taste was stale.
+
+_I could do with a beer, if this is the way I'm going out_, he
+thought. _They can joke all they want about dying in bed after
+traveling to the stars; but you could order a beer even if it killed
+you._
+
+It gradually dawned upon him that the hazy light he had accepted as
+being a nebula must be something closer. He watched for it, and
+discovered after a few moments that it was growing brighter. It
+continued to do so for half an hour.
+
+"It might be another ship!" he breathed, then he began to shout,
+"Mayday! Mayday!" over his radio.
+
+He kept it up for nearly a quarter of an hour, even after the outline
+was definitely recognizable as a rocket. He found himself drifting
+across its course near the bow. It was hard to estimate the distance,
+but he guessed it to be something like a hundred yards.
+
+_Drifting?_ he asked himself. _It should be going past me like a
+shooting star! Unless they took exactly the same curve from Centauri
+VII--_
+
+Then he could read the numbers he feared to see. AC7-4-525. His own
+ship.
+
+He had gone out of the air lock mainly on a puff of air, with some
+fumbling help from Peters. That had been enough to send him out of
+sight of the ship--in space, not necessarily very far--and now he was
+back, after two hours.
+
+_A long, flat orbit in relation to the ship_, he told himself,
+remembering in time to avoid speaking aloud that Braigh might be at
+the ship's radio, _but actually weaving back and forth across the
+rocket's course, just nipping it at this end_.
+
+He edged a hand inside the suit again and turned off his radio. If he
+found an answer, it would be fatal to be overheard mumbling about it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The ship now seemed to be rushing at him, and Tremont deduced that his
+orbital speed had increased as he approached the focus represented by
+the _Annabel_. He would doubtless pass near the air lock at about his
+expulsion speed.
+
+"Here's the chance!" he exulted. "A little air let out to slow down ... or
+even just to veer close enough to lay hands on something! You launched me,
+Peters, but you didn't lose me."
+
+Getting through the airlock should be easy enough. He might be well up
+the shaft before the others emerged from the control room. In fact,
+unless Peters were on watch, the air lock operating signal might flash
+unnoticed on the board.
+
+"And I'll be cracking skulls before they know what's up!" he growled.
+
+It struck him with a flash of ironic amusement that he had not felt
+half so much hate when believing himself doomed. After two hours of
+sweating out his helplessness, he had discovered a lively resentment
+of the vicious callousness with which he had been jettisoned.
+
+He was only about twenty-five yards away now, seemingly circling the
+ship. Peering closer, he saw that actually he was sweeping in toward
+it.
+
+_Now, be ready with the air tank valve, just in case!_ he warned
+himself.
+
+The great fins loomed to his right; the hull blotted most of the sky
+from his view. It looked as if he would curve down to a spot beside
+the same air lock from which he had been expelled. It seemed to be
+still open.
+
+Then he saw the shape of a helmet rise around the curve of the ship.
+Someone was out on the hull.
+
+Tremont switched on his radio and listened.
+
+The spacesuited figure climbed completely into view. There appeared to
+be a line running from the belt into the air lock, and the figure
+carried a long pole of some sort.
+
+"Oh, there you are, Tremont!" came Braigh's voice over the receiver.
+"I've been waiting for you."
+
+The chuckle that followed made Tremont curse, which in turn provoked a
+hearty laugh from the other.
+
+"You didn't think I'd forget you?" asked Braigh. "We figured out what
+happened as soon as we heard you putting out those distress calls.
+After that, it was just a matter of timing. Have you had an amusing
+trip?"
+
+"Have you found out you can't make anything of those papers yet?"
+countered Tremont.
+
+"Oh, the coding? It might take a little time, but we have plenty ...
+now, now, Tremont! That kind of abusive language will get you
+nowhere."
+
+Tremont had drifted to a point above the other's head, almost within
+reach. He was kicking out in little motions that betrayed his
+eagerness to come to grips with Braigh or _something_ solid.
+
+"Why, Tremont! I do believe that you thought I came out to bargain
+with you," chuckled the blond man. "Not at all! I told you that you'd
+be no trouble. I just came out to finish the job Peters bungled."
+
+Tremont saw the pole jabbing upward at his stomach. Instinctively, he
+grabbed at the end. Braigh was not disturbed.
+
+"Take it with you, then!" he laughed, letting go his end with a
+powerful push. "Let me know if you're alive the next time you come
+around, so I can come out again."
+
+Tremont began to swear at him, then got a grip on himself long enough
+to snap his radio off.
+
+He had begun pulling himself down the pole when Braigh had shoved.
+That sapped some of the force, but it was still enough to send him
+spinning out into the void once more.
+
+The ship receded slowly. He saw Braigh return to the air lock and
+enter. A moment later, that light was cut off, and Tremont began to
+back off into space as he had the first time.
+
+_They know all about it_, he realized. _They could leave me any time
+just by burning a little fuel. Peters wouldn't care about wasting
+it--I paid for it. Maybe he's just too lazy to calculate the course
+correction._
+
+If so, he decided, the pilot was right. Tremont might drift back, but
+two more hours from now, when he would be at his closest, would be too
+late. He would be too near the end of his air to use it to make sure
+of the last few feet.
+
+He looked at the pole in his grip. It was an eight-foot section of
+aluminum from the cargo racks.
+
+"Maybe ..." he muttered.
+
+Whirling the pole around by the end, he managed after considerable
+trial and error, to slow his wild spin enough to keep the ship in
+view.
+
+The only question then was whether he dared to take the chance; and he
+really had but one choice. The full orbit would be too long a period.
+
+He estimated as well as he could the direction of his progress,
+allowed a few degrees which he fondly hoped would curve him in to a
+closer approach at the meeting point, and hurled the pole into space
+with all his strength.
+
+After that, there was nothing to do but wait and hope that he had cut
+his speed enough to bring him to the ship ahead of schedule by a
+shorter orbit.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Tremont finally gave up looking at his watch when he found himself
+peeping every three minutes, on the average. The immensity of space
+was by now instilling in him a psychological chill, and he drew both
+arms in from their sleeves to hug an illusion of warmth to him. The
+air pressure in the sleeves gradually overpowered the springs of the
+joints, and extended them to make a cross.
+
+As far as he could tell from the gauges lined in a miniature row
+along the neckpiece of the suit, his heating system was functioning as
+designed. The batteries had an excellent chance of lasting longer than
+he would.
+
+He began to dwell upon thoughts of squeezing Peters in the steel grip
+of his gauntlets until the pilot's fat face turned purple and his eyes
+popped. Another promising activity would be to bang Braigh's head
+against a bulkhead with one hand and Dorothy's with the other.
+
+_Wonder if they found the gun in my locker?_ he mused.
+
+Finally, only a lifetime or two after he hoped to see it, he sighted
+the ship again. His watch claimed the trip had lasted less than ninety
+minutes.
+
+He encountered unexpected trouble approaching the hull. Realizing that
+he was lucky to come close at all by such a guess, he tried to steer
+himself with brief jets from his air tank, and wound up on the verge
+of bashing directly into a fin. He avoided that, but had to use more
+air to spin back for a more gentle contact.
+
+The metal felt like solid Earth to him as he seized the edge of a fin
+and planted the magnets of his boots firmly on the hull.
+
+It was perhaps twenty minutes later, when Tremont was beginning to
+worry again about his air supply, that the hatch of the air lock began
+to open.
+
+Crystals of frost puffed out as the water vapor left the air. Braigh's
+helmet appeared, then the whole spacesuited figure floated up before
+the spot where Tremont was watching. The highjacker dropped the
+magnet of his life line against the hull and started to turn around.
+
+Tremont grabbed the edge of the hatch with one hand, yanked the magnet
+loose with the other, and kicked Braigh in the right area.
+
+The spacesuited figure shot off, tumbling end over end, into the void.
+A startled squawk sounded over Tremont's receiver.
+
+"See how _you_ like it!" he snarled.
+
+He ignored the begging of the suddenly frightened voice, and dived
+into the air lock. In seconds, he had the outer hatch shut and was
+nervously watching the air pressure building up on the gauge.
+
+_If they notice at all, they'll think it's Braigh coming back!_ he
+exulted.
+
+He made it into the central shaft without meeting anyone. Pulling
+himself forward in the bulky suit was an awkward task, but well worth
+it for the expression on Peters' face when Tremont burst through the
+control-room hatch.
+
+After dealing with the pilot in about two minutes, most of it spent in
+catching him, Tremont went back along the shaft and found Dorothy in
+her bunk. Before she could release the netting, he folded the bunk
+upon her and secured it to the hook. Only then did he allow himself
+the time to remove his helmet and make free of the ship's air.
+
+"What are you going to do?" demanded the girl, rather shrilly.
+
+Tremont realized that she must have seen the unconscious Peters
+floating outside in the shaft.
+
+"You won't like it!" he promised.
+
+"Tremont! I didn't know they'd do anything to you. Can't ... you and I ...
+make some kind of ... deal?"
+
+Tremont stared at her levelly.
+
+"But I'd have to really sleep sometime," he pointed out gently. "How
+can I trust you...?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He was hardly a million miles out from the satellite system of
+Centauri VI when the Space Patrol ship he had called managed to put a
+pilot aboard to land the _Annabel_ for him on the largest moon.
+
+Tremont returned wearily from helping the man in the air lock--which
+he did with a practiced efficiency that surprised the pilot--to resume
+his talk with the patrol-ship captain waiting on the screen.
+
+"We could have done it sooner, you know," said the latter curiously.
+"Well, now that I see him beside you, perhaps you'll explain your
+request to delay, and also what those pips trailing you are."
+
+"It's all the same story," said Tremont, and explained his
+difficulties.
+
+The patrol captain frowned and expressed a wish to lay hands on the
+highjackers.
+
+"Well, they're due back in"--Tremont consulted his watch--"about two
+hours. I wanted them near the ends of their orbits as you approached."
+
+"You mean there are three bodies out there?"
+
+"Live ones, in spacesuits," said Tremont. "Experience is a great
+teacher. As soon as I sighted Braigh coming back, I set up a regular
+system."
+
+He explained how he had removed all tools from the three spacesuits,
+added extra tanks, and stuffed the trio into them, either unconscious
+or at gunpoint.
+
+"Then, having fastened the ankles together and wired the wrists to the
+thighs so they couldn't move at all, I launched them one at a time
+with enough pressure in the air lock to give four-hour orbits. That
+gave me sleeping time."
+
+"And what about them?" asked the captain.
+
+"Oh, at the end of that period, they'd come drifting in at one-hour
+intervals. Counting all the necessary operations, each of them got
+thirty minutes actually out of the suit to eat and so on. Then out
+he'd go while I fished in the next one. They didn't like it, but they
+weren't so tough one at a time."
+
+"Let's see--" mused the captain. "Every four hours, you'd have to
+spend ... why, only two hours processing them. As a result, you kept
+complete control and came shooting in here with your own satellite
+system revolving about you."
+
+"And your friends? How have they been passing the time?"
+
+"Well, either figuring out how to take me next time," guessed Tremont,
+"or wishing they were moving in more honest circles!"
+
+END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
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