The Project Gutenberg EBook of Far from Home, by J.A. Taylor

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Title: Far from Home

Author: J.A. Taylor

Release Date: November 8, 2007 [EBook #23408]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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FAR FROM HOME

[Illustration]

BY J. A. TAYLOR

Illustrated by Emsh

_"Far" is strictly a relative term. Half a world away from home is,
sometimes, no distance at all!_

Someone must have talked over the fence because the newshounds were
clamoring on the trail within an hour after it happened.

The harassed Controller had lived in an aura of "Restricteds,"
"Classifieds" and "Top Secrets" for so long it had become a mental
conditioning and automatically hedged over information that had been
public property for years via the popular technical mags; but in time
they pried from him an admittance that the Station Service Lift rocket
A. J. "Able Jake" Four had indeed failed to rendezvous with Space
Station One, due at 9:16 Greenwich that morning.

The initial take-off and ascent had gone to flight plan and the pilot,
in the routine check-back after entering free flight had reported no
motor or control faults. At this point, unfortunately, a fault in the
tracking radar transmitter had resulted in it losing contact with the
target. The Controller did not, however, mention the defection of the
hungover operator in fouling up the signal to the standby unit, or the
consequent general confusion in the tracking network with no contact at
all thereafter, and fervently hoped that gentlemen of the press were not
too familiar with the organization of the tracking system.

At least one of the more shrewd looking reporters appeared as though he
were mentally baiting a large trap so the Controller, throwing caution
to the winds, plunged headlong into a violent refutal of various
erroneous reports already common in the streets.

Able Jake did not carry explosives or highly corrosive chemicals, only
some Waste Disposal cylinders, dry foodstuffs and sundry Station
Household