The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Sargasso of Space, by Edmond Hamilton

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Title: The Sargasso of Space

Author: Edmond Hamilton

Release Date: May 16, 2009 [EBook #28832]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note

This etext was produced from Astounding Stories September 1931.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright
on this publication was renewed.

[Illustration: She was floating along the wreck-pack's edge.]

The Sargasso of Space

_By Edmond Hamilton_

Helpless, doomed, into the graveyard of space floats the wrecked
freighter _Pallas_.

Captain Crain faced his crew calmly. "We may as well face the facts,
men," he said. "The ship's fuel-tanks are empty and we are drifting
through space toward the dead-area."

The twenty-odd officers and men gathered on the middle-deck of the
freighter _Pallas_ made no answer, and Crain continued:

"We left Jupiter with full tanks, more than enough fuel to take us to
Neptune. But the leaks in the starboard tanks lost us half our supply,
and we had used the other half before discovering that. Since the ship's
rocket-tubes cannot operate without fuel, we are simply drifting. We
would drift on to Neptune if the attraction of Uranus were not pulling
us to the right. That attraction alters our course so that in three
ship-days we shall drift into the dead-area."

Rance Kent, first-officer of the _Pallas_, asked a question: "Couldn't
we, raise Neptune with the radio, sir, and have them send out a
fuel-ship in time to reach us?"

"It's impossible, Mr. Kent," Crain answered. "Our main radio is dead
without fuel to run its dynamotors, and our auxiliary set hasn't the
power to reach Neptune."

"Why not abandon ship in the space-suits," asked Liggett, the
second-officer, "and trust to the chance of some ship picking us up?"

The captain shook his head. "It would be quite useless, for we'd simply
drift on through space with the ship into the dead-area."