Astounding Science Fiction, British Edition — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

20 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION sky, then were obscured in a cloud of dust. The Fafnir settled slowly, her white jet splash spraying over the concrete and down into the splash pit. There was a slight jar as her jack-legs touched and compressed under her weight. The jets gave a mighty belch, then died. The control room settled down with a chattering of relays. Lights winked. Micro-switches clicked. The auto pilot flashed a green light, then turned itself off. There was a whine as the gyros shut off. “White Sands control, this is Fafnir,’’ Winch addressed the mike. “On the ground and clear. Thank you. Out.” “Roger, Fafnir. White Sands control off and clear!’ Vanderhoff was snapping switches. He was ringing wet with sweat. “All hands report and secure!”’ Winch sighed. “Electronics secured.” He flipped a few switches and lifted Cosmo from his lap; the cat had ridden out the landing with the electronics man as an added cushion. ““How does it feel, chum, to have a floor under you again? Don’t like it, huh?” “Power room! Report!” Vanderhoff snapped_into the intercom. There was silence. ““Garv! Report! Are you all right?” | the skipper snapped again. Winch unstrapped quickly and sat up, silently watching the skipper. Vanderhoff strode across the com- partment and threw the lower hatch open. ““Grab the First Aid kit and let’s get down there! I thought there was something funny about that landing!” Piling out of his bunk, Winch groaned as he struck the deck, his leg muscles not used to it. Vanderhoff dropped through the hatch. Grabbing the medical kit from its wall brackets, Winch hit the ladder right behind the skipper, leaving Cosmo sitting baffled on the cot. Vanderhoff saw oil all over the floor of the power room as he swung the hatch open. Garver was lying on his cot, his eyes closed, breathing heavily. The skipper went quickly to him. “‘Garv! Are you all right?” Sighing deeply, the jetman opened his eyes. Vanderhoff noticed he was shaking. Garver shut his eyes again, saying, “Yeah.” ‘Starfire! What happened?” ““Give me a cigarette,”’ Garver said. Lighting up, he went on, “The. impeller blades on Number Four pump came loose just after you fired the jets. I had to shut it off to keep it from shaking loose from the deck. The auto pilot couldn’t handle the loss of the jet, so I took over manually to keep the unbalanced thrust from flipping the ship.” “You brought this ship down manu- ally?”? Winch asked incredulously. “Why didn’t you call me?’ Van- derhoff asked. “‘I could have done the iob with the dovar data to help me.” “T didn’t bring it down manually,” Garver explained. “I just overrode the auto pilot. We were on auto all the time, all right. I was just putting in corrections to make up for the loss of thrust and the resulting cockeyed thrust vectors. You couldn’t have done that in control.’ He put his hand over his eyes and shook his head. The skipper could see he was exhausted from his effort. “‘Let’s get out of this coffin! I’m worn out.” The sun was just rising over the low hills to the east of the Tularosa Basin as Garver walked out the lock with Vanderhoff and Winch. The desert air was cool and - He shivered slightly in his thin jerkin and was glad to put on the warm green coveralls handed them by the ground crew. Conmclboookkxs.con