The main persons
* Space Station Supervisor (name not mentioned) - an astronaut whose job is to sit all day long in the Observation Bubble of the station and to supervise the space. He tells the story.
* Tommy - a male (???) cat kept in the spaceship as a pet
Outline of Contents
A twenty-year old U.S. Air Force stray satellite that was lost through an accident is found. As it is a menace to navigation, the Supervisor has to haul it aboard. On his way to his locker, he passes Tommy, the recently acquired pet cat of the station and everybody\'s darling. Though he mews plaintively, the Supervisor has no time to play with him. After checking FORB (fuel, oxygen, radio and batteries), he starts off for his work, sealed in a tiny, mobile cylinder, with a superb view of the universe, but practically no freedom of movement in his suit. Suddenly, he hears a strange sound he cannot identify. He panics and remembers that another astronaut had died very close to this place, through an accident with his suit. Because a spacesuit is too valuable to be thrown away, it is repaired and given to someone else - even if he has killed his wearer. As he calls Station to check his suit history but never finishes; something patts hin softly on the neck his forehead smashes against the control panel and he falls uncounscious. When he is waken up, he is the last one to know that the badly misnamed Tommy has hid her three little kittens inside his spacesuit.
|