Way. Funny he should be lying on his back looking at the sky, he thought. Then he remembered.

The capsule was on its back and Brandon was still strapped securely to the seat. His whole body ached. Tendons had been pulled, muscles strained from the force of the ejection. His oxygen mask was still in place, but his helmet hung partly loose. He adjusted it automatically, then unbuckled the seat straps. He took a deep breath. Under the oxygen mask, he was aware of dried blood clotted in his nostrils, caked around the corners of his lips.

With an effort he sat up on the seat back and looked through the perma-glas. A tangle of cords stretched out to the nylon of the main chute draped over a dust dune. Beyond it he could see the gleaming metal ribbons of the drogue chute.

Ahead of him, behind some low hills, he could see a dull red glow. The ship, he thought. Astro may already be hovering over it.

He dragged the survival kit from behind the seat and pulled out some rations, a first-aid kit, finally a tele-talkie. Raising the antenna, he plugged in the mike cord from his mask and held down the “talk” key with his thumb.

“Astro One, this is Brandon. Come in.”

As he talked a picture flickered on the screen. It was the radio room on Astro One. Colonel Towers was pacing back and forth in front of the radioman.

“Shall I keep trying to raise him?” he heard Reinhardt ask.

“Damn fool stunt,” Towers sputtered. “Know what I think? I think he went down deliberately. Just to be the first human being to walk the ground of a planet of another solar system.”

“Astro, this is Brandon. Come in please.”

[p24]
Towers continued to pace and talk. “He did it to spite me.”

“But we can’t raise him sir,” the radio operator said. “Maybe he didn’t get out of it alive.”

“Colonel Towers, can’t you hear me?” Brandon yelled into his oxygen mask.

“He got out all right,” the colonel said. “He’s just stalling to make it look good.”

“We aren’t going to give up the search are we, sir?” asked the radioman.

“It would serve his soul right.” The colonel stopped pacing and faced the radioman. “Keep trying to raise him, Reinhardt. I’m going to bring us down to forty thousand feet and search the area where he went down. Helluva waste of rocket fuel tooling around in the atmosphere,” he muttered, disappearing through a bulkhead door.

“Wait! Colonel Towers!” Brandon called. But he knew it was no use. Obviously he could pick up Astro but they could neither see nor hear him.

“Captain Brandon, this is Astro calling. Over.” The radioman repeated the phrase a dozen times and each time Brandon acknowledged, swore and acknowledged again. Finally, in desperation, he switched off the tele-talkie.

He snapped open the back of the unit and studied the maze of transistors, resistors, and capacitators. If there was something wrong it was subtle, like a burned out resistor or a shorted condenser. Whatever it was, it was beyond emergency repair. He dropped the tele-talkie behind the seat and examined the gauge on his oxygen tank. There was enough to last the night but not much more.

He sat down in the capsule to think. The first thing they’d locate is the burning ship, he decided. Then they would probably start searching in ever-widening circles. But would they see him in the faint light of the ice moons?

He looked back at the nylon chute again. Another thought ran through his mind. Suppose they don’t spot me in the dark. When the sun—Sirius, I mean—comes up, there’s a good chance they’ll spot the parachute and search for him.

He slid the canopy open and looked down at the red soil of Sirius Three. He hesitated for a moment, then swung his feet