"It will be an experience she'll never forget, but it shouldn't be too hard on her. It isn't as though she were completely alone, you know."
"No, I suppose not. She probably got out with anywhere from two to eight others. A lot of those were—well, not real spacemen, but at least they were regular space trippers. I—"
A detector alarm rang and everybody jumped to the alert. Edwards barked an order and one of the flight-techs darted off toward the launching deck. There was no point in stopping the whole flight, for any detection of matter would be investigated by one-man scooters. If a lifeship should be found, an infrawave call would bring the search flight hurrying back.
This was not it. The flight-tech reported a small clutter of pebbles and frozen gas. Probably a comet on its long, cold, dead swing near aphelion.
And the search went on....
Charles Andrews snorted angrily and growled, "It's damned inefficient, that's all I have to say."
Pilot Jock Norton shrugged. "We're alive."
"But why can't we pack on some power and get going somewhere?"
"Because this is a lifeship and not an interstellar spacecraft. I told you that before. D'ye expect a lifeship to be as big as the carrier?"
"Don't be an imbecile."