s, the bull sessions, the endless speculation on what comes
next, or what we will do when the voyage is over and we are again on
Earth ...

... I particularly recall Gregory. Odd, but I never knew his surname, or
maybe it was his given name, for Gregory could function as well in one
respect as the other. He would boast continually of what he would do to
wine, women, and song once we returned to Earth. Poor Gregory. The
meteor that hulled our ship struck squarely through the engine room
where he was on duty. Probably he never knew that he had died. At least
his fate had the mercy of being brief. Certainly it is not like mine. It
was ... given ...

There was plenty of time for the survivors to reach the lifeboats, and
in our decimated condition there were plenty of boats--which increased
our chances of living by a factor of four ... I suppose that it was
foolish to give way to the feeling of every man for himself but I am not
a spaceman trained to react automatically to emergencies. Neither am I a
navigator or a pilot, although I can fly in an emergency. I am a
biologist, a specialist member of the scientific staff--essentially an
individualist. I knew enough to seal myself in, push the eject button
and energize the drive. However, I did not know that a lifeboat had no
acceleration compensators, and by the time the drive lever returned to
neutral, I was far out in space and thoroughly lost. I could detect no
lifeboats in the vicinity nor could I raise any on the radio. I later
found that a transistor malfunctioned, but by then I was well out of
range, stranded between the stars in the black emptiness of space. After
reading the manual on lifeboat operation there was but one course open.
I selected the nearest G-type star, set the controls on automatic, and
went into cold sleep. There was nothing else to do. If I remained awake
I would be dead of oxygen starvation long before I reached a habitable
world. The only alternative was the half-death of frozen sleep and the
long wait until the boat came within range of the sun I had selected.

* * * * *

I awoke in orbit around this world, and after I recovered full use of my
faculties and checked the analyzer, I decided to land. I'm afraid I did
a rather bad job of it, since I used the chemical rockets too late, and
the plasma jets scorched a considerable amount of acreage in the meadow
where I finally came to rest. However, the residual radioac