{"id":6788,"date":"2023-12-02T11:50:51","date_gmt":"2023-12-02T11:50:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=6788"},"modified":"2023-12-02T11:50:53","modified_gmt":"2023-12-02T11:50:53","slug":"the-half-pair-by-a-bertram-chandler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=6788","title":{"rendered":"The Half Pair by A. Bertram Chandler"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Half Pair<\/em><\/strong> by A. Bertram Chandler (New Worlds<\/em>, November 1957) sees the male member of a husband and wife prospecting team, halfway between Mars and the Asteroid Belt, complain about a missing cufflink that has been flushed out the garbage disposal into space. When his wife tells him she\u2019ll get him another pair when they land, he is not impressed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u2018We agreed\u2019, he said stiffly, \u2018that we weren\u2019t going to let ourselves lapse, get sloppy, the way that some prospecting couples do. You must remember those dreadful people we met on PX173A\u2014the ones who asked us to dinner aboard their ship. He dressed in greasy overalls, she in what looked like a converted flour sack. The drinks straight from the bottle and the food straight from the can\u2026\u2019
\u2018That\u2019, she told him, \u2018was an extreme case.\u2019
\u2018Admittedly. And my going around with my shirt sleeves rolled up, or flapping, would be the thin end of the wedge.\u2019
He brooded. \u2018What I can\u2019t get over is the clottishness of it all. I go through into the bathroom to rinse out my shirt. I leave the cuff links on the ledge over the basin while I put the shirt on the stretcher to dry. Picking up the cuff links, to transfer them to a clean shirt, I drop one into the basin. It goes down the drain. I hurry to the engine-room to get a spanner to open the pipe at the U-bend. I return to find you filling the basin to wash your smalls. I tell you what\u2019s happened\u2014and you promptly pull out the plug, washing the link over and past the bend…\u2019
\u2018I wanted to see,\u2019 she said.
\u2018You wanted to see,\u2019 he mimicked.\u00a0 p. 90<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This domestic squabbling continues until the man decides to don a spacesuit and go out to retrieve the missing link (he has seen it on the ship radar orbiting nearby). His wife protests as they are not meant to EVA solo, and she can\u2019t go as she has been traumatised by a previous space walk.
Needless to say (spoiler), the man goes out on his own, loses his thruster, and then realises his safety line has become undone. His air supply runs out and he lapses into unconsciousness\u2014but later wakes up in the ship. His wife tells him, in an explanation as to how she overcame her trauma, \u2018I do so hate half a pair of anything\u2014and I don\u2019t mean only cuff links!\u2019
This neat last line, and the couple\u2019s verbal sparring throughout, make for a fun if lightweight piece.
*** (Good). 1800 words. Story link<\/a>.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Half Pair by A. Bertram Chandler (New Worlds, November 1957) sees the male member of a husband and wife prospecting team, halfway between Mars and the Asteroid Belt, complain about a missing cufflink that has been flushed out the garbage disposal into space. When his wife tells him she\u2019ll get him another pair when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1604],"tags":[426,24,1605,1606,1227,183,1022,12,502],"class_list":["post-6788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-bertram-chandler","tag-426","tag-3-2","tag-a-bertram-chandler","tag-eva","tag-married-life","tag-new-worlds","tag-short-short","tag-short-story","tag-space-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6788"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6788\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6800,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6788\/revisions\/6800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}