Lost Art

They lived by and for push buttons and machines, and knew nothing else. But Endicott remembered about the old, old days—when a man could save a life without a push-button....
Stiff fingers of icy, wind-driven snow beat a tattoo on the hull of the cargo ship, filtered through the jagged tears in the metal skin, sifted down over the useless control board with its dead gauges and bank upon bank of pushbuttons. Amidship, a wind-thrashed branch screechingly scraped the reverberating hull, and the sound, like the rasp of sliding hatch covers, echoed through the ship.
Dazedly, Allison watched the sifting snow settle on the buttons, each one acquiring a grotesque, lop-sided, conical hat which grew as he stared. He reached forward an already stiffening finger and brushed one of the hats away, and almost idly watched another one form in its place.
Come on, Allison, come on. Snap out of it. Endicott came out of the passageway into the control room, returned from his inspection of the machinery. You hurt in the landing?
Allison didn't answer. He shivered and pushed another inquisitive finger at the control board; the finger selected a certain button and pushed it steadily. There was no click of a hidden relay, no whir of little motors springing to life.
You can punch that button or any of the others from now until—It won't do any good. We're dead. The plume of Endicott's frozen breath drifted over Allison's shoulder, merged with the sifting snow.
Dead? Allison echoed in a sleepwalker's voice. Dead, he repeated and jabbed the button again and again.
In a manner of speaking, Endicott's white-sandy brows drew together in a frown. We're off the powercast—our receiver, I guess.
No power. Allison was following better, was waking up. That means—Can't you fix it, Chief?
Nope. I tried, but something in its guts is burned out. No power. Endicott beat his old blue-veined hands together.
Allison's frost-numbed fingers picked at the straps on his reclining geeseat, and he stepped to the light metal deck. He shivered and punched the button on the control board again. He was seized by a spasm of uncontrollable shaking. No power means—no heat! Panic crept into his voice.