Free Journey Into Space by Charles Chilton

you’re certainly functioning OK now, Luna. Stand by for full details of your position and velocity.”
    Jet switched on the recorder. “Go ahead, Control. Standing by.”
    We listened anxiously as the coveted information was slowly and precisely given to us, every figure repeated three times. We were 142,000 miles from Earth and our speed had dropped to 42,000 mph. This was very nearly what it would have been if the firing and cutting off of the second motor had been carried out by Control as originally intended and not by us. We all felt very pleased with ourselves. We became cheerful again, made jokes--and went out of our way to be polite to one another.
    When Control’s long recitation of facts and figures had ended and the operator’s recorded voice had been played back to him for final check, our normal working routine went into action.
    Watches were divided into four hours per man. Jet took the first, Mitch the second, then me and finally, to enable him to get a long period of sleep without interruption, Lemmy. Leaving Jet at the control table, the rest of us retired to our bunks. The last thing of which I was aware was Jet replaying the log to himself via the reproduction earpiece and copying down the figures for comparison with the estimated flight schedule we had brought with us.
    Ten hours later we were having our first leisurely meal together. Lemmy, purely for the novelty of the experience, had taken his on the ceiling, his rations having been floated up to him by gentle pushes. From his lofty position he kept up an almost constant flow of small talk. “Push me up a banana, will you, Doc? Ta.”
    “Lemmy, do you always intend to take your meals upside down on the ceiling?” Jet asked him.
    “What difference does it make? It all goes down, or should I say ‘up’, just the same.”
    “But it looks so undignified.”
    “Great idea for cocktail parties though. Think of the room it saves.”
    “Anything more, Lemmy?” I asked.
    “No thanks, Doc. I’ve about eaten my fill.”
    “Then push your empties down and I’ll stow them away.”
    “How about a little after dinner music?” came the voice from above.
    “Oh, not that, Lemmy,” protested Mitch.
    “Got to do something to pass the time.”
    It had been agreed that each man could bring from Earth some purely personal object or objects weighing not more than one pound. I had brought my journal and, at every opportunity, filled its pages with details of our life within the confined space of the ship and our individual reactions to it. Both Jet and Mitch had brought a book apiece; Mitch, a technical treatise on atomic power and Jet, a well-worn copy of a fictional work.
    Lemmy had no literary aspirations. He had brought a mouth-organ and during his off-duty periods treated us to selections from his repertoire. Unfortunately it wasn’t very large; unfortunately, too, in our cramped quarters there was no escaping it. At the moment the cabin resounded to the echoes of Lemmy’s favourite item, “Knocked ‘em in the Old Kent Road.” He was also very adept at playing Hebrew dances.
    We resigned ourselves to suffer in silence. Even Mitch refrained from repeating his objection for, now that we were in radio contact with Earth again, Lemmy was the hero of the hour. But we had endured only a few bars of the old Cockney ballad when it was brought to an abrupt close by a sound like the sharp report of a heavy-bore rifle. It was followed, within a fraction of a second, by the shriek of the klaxon horn which told us we had been struck by a meteor.
    We had been drilled for this moment for months. Jet had his drinking straw to his lips, finishing the last of his cold tea. His immediate reaction was to ‘drop everything’--and he did. Down on Earth his bottle would have gone crashing to the floor. But not here. It remained where it was, poised in the air.
    “Emergency! Action stations!” Jet yelled.
    We needed no second bidding. In fact Mitch and I were up on