Tight Squeeze | Page 5

space was
crammed with something, except for the passageway with its ladder,
leading up from the main motor section. Well, if it wasn't over a "g," he
could hang on to the ladder. Suit weighs another fifty pounds, though.
My weight plus fifty, he thought. "Give me a chance to get set," he said
aloud. He hooked one bulbous leg over a ladder rung and braced the
other against a lower rung, hugging the ladder with both arms. "Any
time you say, but kill it if you hear me holler!"
"Then five seconds from my mark--mark!" Mac tightened his grip, and
then sagged backward as the main motors fired. The vibrations shook
him slightly but deeply, and he fought to keep his hold. He felt his back
creak and pop with the sudden surge of weight. Then the motors shut
off, and Mac skidded several feet up the ladder. No matter how fast a
man's reactions were, they couldn't be applied quickly enough to keep
him from starting an involuntary leap after bracing against a suddenly
removed gravity load. "All over, Mac. You O.K.?"
"Guess so, but I feel like a ping-pong ball. How're we sittin'?"
"Just fine," Ruiz cut in. "Find anything?"
"Not yet." Mac started his search anew. Everything seemed in perfect
order up to the turbine pumps. Then, he feared, the trouble was near the
little motors. That was tough, really tough. With the motors retracted it
was next to impossible to get to them, past their hydraulically operated
booms and actuators. Extended, he'd have to go outside. He cringed
from the thought, although he knew that there was little to fear if he
linked himself to the ship.

He peered along the beam of light, searching for some telltale
discoloration in wiring, or a gleaming icy patch which would indicate a
fuel leak. "Might be the firing plugs," he muttered.
"Let's hope not. Where are you, Mac? Maybe you better give us a
blow-by-blow." Logan sounded worried.
"Good idea. Right now I'm at the nine o'clock actuator. Nothing so far."
He looked around himself, forgetting for the moment how he was
supposed to get past the equipment to the other auxiliary motor
stations.
"Johnny," he said slowly, "I think you'd best break out the tapes.
Auxiliary motor system; you'll find them under power plant." Months
before, MacNamara had made a complete set of tape recordings of his
own voice, recorded as he made a thorough-going rundown of every
system and its components. This was a personal innovation which his
fellow flight engineers considered folly. Extra weight, they scoffed.
Undue complication. Mac nodded and went on with his impromptu
speechmaking; a professional psychiatrist might have said, correctly,
that Mac felt an unconscious need for supervision, a forgivable
deficiency dating back to his cadet days. Mac simply claimed that the
best of men could forget or omit when alone with a few million dollars'
worth of Uncle's equipment. This way he could remind himself of each
step to be taken ahead of time, in his own way.
The co-pilot rushed to comply. Mac, waiting, suddenly remembered
how to get past his obstacle. Internal braces which helped keep the
tanks rigidly in place on Earth were of little use while in "freeloading,"
or gravity-less, state. The braces were removable, and Mac had
loosened a single wing-nut to let the brace swing loose when he heard
Johnny Ruiz's answer.
"Ready with your tape, Mac. Where shall I start it?"
"Run it through 'til you get to a blank spot, then another, then stop it."
He was certain he didn't really need the tape, but it was a maintenance
aid and he was determined to use it.

He heard a click, then a hum, as the recorder was jacked into his
headset circuit. Immediately, a familiar voice began a slow dissertation
on power leads from the dome, speeded up in the space of a second or
two to a high-pitched alien gibberish, then to a faint scream. He began
squirming around the turbine tanks, got past the first brace, and turned
to attach it again. Of course it wasn't necessary, but--"PLAY IT SAFE"
was embroidered on his brain by years of maintenance experience;
back in his old maintenance squadron, he'd been called "the old lady"
instead of "the old man," due to his insistence on precautions.
Ruiz slowed the tape suddenly, on cue, and Mac heard himself saying,
"... Brace back in its slot and pin it. Be careful of those linkages on the
turbine pumps. Now crawl around to the next brace and unpin it."
Pause, scraping noises, and a muttered oath. "Pin sticks, but it won't
without a load on it." It didn't.
He worked slower than he had on the ground, fumbling with the heavy
gloves and cursing mightily. His