after the ship on his suit
jets except that the thought of leaving his little island, cold comfort
though it was, to plunge into those totally empty depths was suddenly
horrible.

The tide of panic rose within him. He knew the sickening bodily revolt
of blind unreasoning terror--the terror of the lost, the terror of
certain untimely death, but mostly of death so dreadfully alone.

He might have gone insane. In the face of the insoluble problem his mind
might have retreated into a shadow world of its own, perhaps to prattle
happily the last few hours away. But there was something else there. The
pre-flight school psychiatrist had recognized it, Johnny himself
probably wouldn't have and it wasn't their policy to tell him. It saved
him. The labored heart pounding and the long shuddering gasps slowed in
time and with the easing of his physical distress he found enough heart
to muster a wry little smile at the thought that of the castaways of
history he at least stood fair to be named the most unique.

* * * * *

And after a while, shaking himself mentally, a little ashamed of his
temporary fall from grace, he followed the example of the more
intelligent of his predecessors and settled down to itemize his assets,
analyze his position and conjecture the chances of survival.

Item: He was encased in a Denby Bros. spacesuit, Mark III, open space
usage, meant for no gravity use. Therefore it had no legs as such, the
lower half being a rigid cylinder allowing considerable movement within
and having a swivel mounted rocket motor at its base controlled by toe
pedals inside.

The upper half, semiflexible with jointed arms ending in gloves from
which by contorting the shoulders the hands could be withdrawn into the
sleeves when not in use.

A metal and tinted plastic helmet with earphones, mike and chin switch.
An oxy air-conditioning and reprocessing unit with its spare pure oxygen
tank; on this he could possibly depend for twelve hours given no undue
exertion and with the most rigid economy all the time.

The power pack for suit operation and radio had a safety margin of one
hour over the maximum air supply, if the radio wasn't used. At this time
Johnny couldn't see much use for it.

Item: One Waste Disposal Cylinder, expendable, complete with motor and
full fuel tanks, packed, according to his loading manifest with sundry
supplies to avoid dead stowage space. Seldom used, since most station