Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [64]
"Apollo, this is Houston, what did you say was in visual range, interrogative?"
"Hammerlab," Baker said. He looked over at Delanty and grinned. Officially it was Spacelab Two; but who called it that?
They approached rapidly: slowly to the astronauts, who were themselves moving at 25,000 feet each second. Then it was time. Delanty flew the Apollo. Jets edged their craft closer to their target: a big steel garbage can, forty feet long and ten in diameter, with viewports along the sides, one airlock, and docking hatches at each end.
"The economy-price spacelab," Baker muttered. "It's tumbling. I make that one rotation in four minutes, eight seconds."
First to match completely with Hammerlab: Fire the Apollo's attitude jets in just the precise pattern, so that it would tumble with the target. Then move closer to the thing, waiting for the chance, until the big docking probe on Apollo could enter the matching hole in the end of Hammerlab … and they were in darkness again. Rick was amazed at how long it had taken him to fly what looked like far less than a mile. Of course they'd also come 14,000 miles in the same fifty minutes …
When dawn came Rick was ready, and made one pass, and a second, and cursed, and eased forward and felt the slight contact of the two ships, and the instruments showed contact at center, and Rick drove forward, hard …
"Virgin no more!" he shouted.
"Houston, this is Apollo. We have docking. I say again, we have docking." Baker said.
"We know," a dry voice said from below. "Colonel Delanty's mike was live."
"Whoops," Rick said.
"Apollo, this is Houston, your partners are approaching, SOYUZ has you in visual. I say again, Soyuz has visual contact."
"Roger Houston." Baker turned to Rick. "So now you stabilize this mother while I talk to friendly Asian brother—and sister. SOYUZ. SOYUZ, this is Apollo. Over."
"Apollo. this is SOYUZ." a male voice said. Jakov's English was grammatically perfect, and almost without accent. He'd studied with American-speaking teachers, not Britishers. "Apollo, we copy you five by five. Is your docking maneuver completed, interrogative? Over."
"We are docked with Hammerlab. It is safe to approach. Over."
"Apollo, this is Sovuz. By 'Hammerlab' do you mean Spacelab Two, interrogative? Over."
Baker said. "Affirmative."
Delanty was aware that he was using too much fuel. No one but a perfectionist would have noticed that; the maneuver was well within the error program devised by Houston. But Rick Delanty cared.
Eventually they were stable: Apollo, its nose buried in the docking port in one end of the garbage can that was Hammerlab, both now stable in space, not wobbling and not tumbling. The Apollo led, at 25,000 feet per second: Baker and Delanty, ass-backward around the Earth each ninety minutes.
"Done," Rick said. "Now let's watch them try."
"Rojj," Baker said. He activated a camera system. There was a cable connector in the docking mechanism, and the picture came through perfectly: a view of Soyuz, massive and closer than they'd expected, approaching Hammerlab from the far side. The Soyuz grew, nose on. It wobbled slightly in its orbit, showing its massive bulk: Soyuz was considerably larger than the Apollo. The Soviets had always had their big military boosters to assist their space program, while NASA designed and built special equipment.
"That big mother better not have forgotten the lunch," Delanty said. "Or it will get hungry up here."
"Yep." Baker continued to watch.
The Soyuz was vital to the Hammerlab mission. It had brought up most of the consumables. Hammerlab was packed with instruments and film and experiments; but there was food and water and air for only a few days. They needed SOYUZ to stay for Hamner-Brown's approach.
"Maybe it will anyway," Johnny Baker said. He looked grimly at the screen, and at the maneuvering Soviet vehicle.
Watching was painful.
Soyuz floundered like a dead whale in the tide. It nosed violently toward the camera and shied as violently