waste was ferried down in the otherwise empty service ships, they
occasionally handled certain laboratory refuse it was considered best to
destroy in space. The cylinders were decelerated and allowed to fall
into atmosphere where the friction of the unchecked plunge burned up
what the magnesium charge inside had not already. The rest of the
shipwrecked material had by now drifted beyond easy reach and Johnny did
not feel like wasting fuel rounding it up.

Position? A matter of memory and some guesswork by now. Some ten minutes
out of powered flight at the time of collision, coasting up to station
orbit where a quick boost from the jets would have made up his lost
velocity to orbit standard. But there would be no boost now. So he'd
just fall off around the other side, falling around and into Mother
Earth, to skim atmosphere and climb on past and up to touch orbit
altitude--and down again. A nice elliptical orbit, apogee a thousand odd
miles, perigee, sixty-seventy--perhaps. How much speed had he left? How
long would it be before he brushed the fringe of atmosphere once too
often and too deep? Just another meteor.

And survival. A comparatively simple problem since the mechanics of it
were restricted by a simple formula in which his role would seem to be a
passive one. To survive he must be rescued by his own kind in twelve
hours or less. To be rescued he must be seen or heard. Since his radio
was a simple short-range intercom it followed that he must be seen first
and heard later. Being seen meant making a sufficiently distinguishable
_blip_ on somebody's radar screen to arouse comment over a _blip_ where,
according to schedule no orbiting _blip_ should be.

* * * * *

Johnny was painfully aware that the human body is very small in space.
The cylinder would be a help but he doubted it would be enough. Then he
thought of the material inside the cylinder. He pried back the lugs
holding the cover in place with the screwdriver from his belt kit. He
started pulling out packages, bags, boxes, thrusting them behind him,
above him, downwards; cereals, ready mixed pastries, bundles of
disposable paper overalls--toilet paper! He worked furiously, now stuck
halfway down the cylinder, kicking the bundles behind him. He emerged
finally in a flurry of articles clutching a large plastic bag that had
filled the entire lower end of the tank.

About him drifted a sizable cloud of station supplies, stir