The Sargasso of Space

She was floating along the wreck-pack's edge.
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.
The score of members of the crew, bronzed space-sailors out of every port in the solar system, had listened mutely. Now, one of them, a tall tube-man, stepped forward a little.