Not only were there no walls around him, there wasn't even anything under his feet. There was nothing, anywhere.
"So this was what all that talk added up to," Pappas thought. "They simply set me out here in the middle of the vacuum to stay until the suit's food and air give out."
He thought he might as well make himself at home. He checked over the suit. It was nicely equipped. In addition to standard items, there were several things strapped onto the back of the suit on the outside which pleased him until he realized how little difference they made: There was a reel of light, strong cable with magnetic grapples which could be clamped onto it. There was a hand reaction motor the size of a Stillson wrench, and ten containers of fuel, each the size of a fountain pen. There was a large mirror, for signaling. Also for the same purpose, there was a powerful, highly directional searchlight. He checked the cells which powered it; they were low, but he knew they were charging at that moment from the sunlight falling on them. The searchlight would work. For what that was worth.
So much for his suit. Next, where was he? His position couldn't be given in latitude and longitude, because there wasn't anything for it to be latitude and longitude on. He was somewhere between the orbits of Venus and Earth. The direction of the Sun he could tell by glancing at the arm of his spacesuit and seeing where the sunlight fell—the Sun was behind him and to the right, and a little "downward."
As for the Earth, that would be the next brightest body in his sky. He craned his head in all directions, searching. Then he took out the hand reaction motor and gave a blast to start himself spinning, so he could search in the directions he hadn't been able to see in before. Even the short blast he used made the motor tug at his hand and started the universe whirling around him frighteningly. He turned the control on the motor down as low as it would go, then pressed the button several more times. Finally he had canceled out most of his rotation, and the Milky Way was wheeling calmly about him. He got himself oriented again and after a short time had identified Earth, which was close enough to appear as a blue-green disk.
Earth! A thought suddenly struck him. The Tang had been heading straight for Earth when it had let him off; he was still going exactly in the Tang's former orbit. He would reach Earth! There was one more thing he should check—yes, he had a parachute. It was on the back of his spacesuit, underneath the gear he'd investigated before. Now if he could land safely he was all set! Birkerod and Garcia must not have thought of this.
One thing still bothered him: He had been headed for Earth when he was put off the Tang, but had anything happened since to put him off course? How about those times he'd used the reaction motor to set himself spinning? Well, the several small blasts would probably not have had any net effect on his direction of motion, and if they had there wasn't anything to be done about it. But the single strong blast at the beginning—he could remember which constellation he'd been facing at the time, where he'd held the reaction motor, and how strong a blast he'd given. That meant he could give an approximately equal blast now in the opposite direction. This he did, being careful to aim directly away from his center of gravity, so as not to start spinning again.
Now he should be back on course, he figured. Assuming, that is, that he'd ever been off. The small thrust of his reaction motor, applied for such a short time, might not be enough to make any appreciable difference as to where he ended up. He didn't bother trying to calculate it.
Nothing to do now but wait. He spent the time thinking about what he'd do when he got to Earth. It was hard to figure. He'd had a racket on Earth for the year-and-a-half after the Beldens brought him there; everyone had assumed he was doing something important to Callisto's welfare, and all he'd had to do was go through the motions. Now, he didn't know. It was probably true that the Beldens were through; with the Tang Chuh-Chih arriving on Callisto, the odds were against them.