He went out and grabbed a crowbar and pried the plate off, recoil cylinder and hydraulic fluid following like a jack-in-the-box. After cleaning out the drive tube he almost lost his reason when he discovered the cable connecting the beam to the power-pack wasn't long enough to reach the bulkhead. Fortunately he found an extension in the bottom of the tool box.
Fifteen minutes to go.
That should be just long enough. He switched on the beam. Now time seemed to race by. At ten minutes to go the bulkhead turned a cherry-red. At five minutes it was almost white. At four, the steel started to buckle. At three—the heat-beam suddenly went dead. The power-pack was empty.
Ballard's reason reeled. He grabbed the crowbar and jabbed at the fast cooling metal.
Too late.
In the one minute he had left to live, Ballard suddenly became calm, reconciling himself to his end. Wearily he crawled out of the tube. At least Walton would be in for a nasty surprise, with the main drive recoil plate gone. And to make sure, he would push it off into space. With one last surge of fury he dragged up the foot thick plate he could never have lifted back on Earth, and started shoving to give it momentum.
Momentum equals velocity times mass. Suddenly he stopped, the plate drifting on ahead of him. Now why had he thought of that? Something from his school days—he tried hard to remember—something about mass....
Mass is a constant. Weight is a variable, but mass is what knocks holes in things—spaceships, for instance.
Just one thing could save him now—momentum. Ballard glanced at his wrist. Twenty seconds to go. Then maybe another twenty from the oxygen in the connecting tube. Not much time—
He bounded off after the still-drifting plate, then began forcing it around in a semi-circle back toward the ship. The recoil plate sluggishly began to move faster as it gained momentum. It started getting ahead of him so he gave it one last push, and it slowly crept away heading straight for the hull. It floated edge-wise into the aft section—and kept on going. A three foot stream of light poured out from the side of the ship.