The craft began going into a dizzy spin. The boys had to hold on tightly to some anchored support to keep from being flung against the wall.
Garry watched the satellite become lost against the sprawling background of stars. He knew they were hurtling farther out into space, out of control, headed for a destination now that even the space-station operators might not know.
The boys were so disheartened by the latest bad break that, for the time being, they did not care what happened to them. This lowering of their spirits seemed to remind them that they were a long time past their slumber time, and they suddenly became very sleepy. By earth time, it would be the dark hours before dawn.
They went to sleep on their feet, because in the zero gravity there was no need for them to lie down. Their magnetic soles held them in place to keep them from drifting about as they slept.
Garry was the first to wake up, hours later. There was no way for him to know how much time had passed. He woke his friend, who stretched and yawned.
“I never thought I’d be able to sleep standing up,” Patch said. “I feel like a horse.”
“We got a good rest,” Garry said. “I guess that’s because of the zero gravity.”
Patch looked gloomily out of the front port of the flier. “We’re still no better off than we were before, though, Garry, but, I think we have stopped moving.”
Garry shook his head. “It just seems like we’re not moving because the stars and everything else around us are so still. We’re moving all right—and fast. This ship may still be moving after we’re dead, even if we could live for a hundred years, because there’s nothing ever to slow us down out here; that is, unless we happened to move into the gravity field of some planet, which would pull us down.”
“I knew we should have turned ourselves in when we had the chance,” Patch said mournfully. “If we had, we wouldn’t be in this fix now.”