The ferry ship's radioman, a young Englishman, tapped him on the shoulder. The pilot turned away from the eyepiece, and his face was drawn and white.
"They've picked up his track," the radioman said.
"What?"
The radioman handed the pilot a piece of paper. "Just got the news. His suit transmitter, the beacon's working. The station at Leningrad picked up the signal, they're going to compute his orbit."
It was a few seconds before the American understood what he was talking about.
"Duport, you mean? They're tracking him?" He hesitated. "But why? Why are they computing his orbit?"
The Englishman grinned. "They're going to try to pick him up. Rescue him, you know."
The American stared.
"Be a few hours before they have an exact plot," the radioman went on. "The rough estimate is that they'll be ready to launch within forty-six hours. They're going to send up the Wabash Cannonball. If his beacon keeps operating, there's a fifty-fifty chance they'll catch him. Just thought you'd want to know, sir. You may not have lost a Corpsman after all." The Englishman turned to go back to his post, and the American stared at his back as he moved away.
"Why?" he whispered. "Why?" The pilot did some rough calculations in his head. He remembered the ship's approximate position and velocity at the time that Duport had jumped. Duport's body would of course have about the same orbital velocity as that of the ship, though the impetus of his leap would have been enough to carry him into some completely different direction. Somewhere out there Duport was swinging around the Earth in a wide, elliptical orbit. For some reason it had not occurred to the pilot that he might still be alive. Since the moment that he had turned and seen the open hatch he had been thinking of Duport as a casualty, already dead. But in fact, the American realized, Duport was probably still alive. His suit was equipped for just this kind of emergency; it had an oxygen regenerating system that could supply him with air to breathe as long as the photocells kept his battery charged. The catch was that no one had ever lived in a suit before for more than twelve hours at a stretch. Six hours was considered the normal safety limit. In theory the suit would keep Duport alive until he died of thirst or starvation. In theory.