A short story I read as a child in the late 70s/early 80s. I think it was in a book of short stories borrowed from the library. I cannot remember any words in the title or the author.
The basic story is that one survivor has landed on an alien planet in a small spaceship, and the main mothership has apparently been destroyed, and is in several pieces (along with the rest of the crew, presumably). The on-board computer is not being cooperative, as it intends to shut down the ship soon, in order to conserve energy for eventual return to the mothership. The chap firstly plans to work around this by severee means, such as drilling holes through the hulll to let in external air, etc. But he finally manages to persuade the computer to keep the ship running for his benefit (after it has itself ascertained that the mothership is in a bad way and therefore not recoverable).
The alien atmosphere can support life, but he currently goes outside in a sealed suit, where plastic compound is sprayed on the suit at both exit and entry, and then peeled off and disposed of, thereby sealing in any contaminents. But this eventually runs out, as does just about everything else he is using, so he eventually has to persuade the computer to let him go outside without the suits - I remenber that the computer was displaying contaimination alert, etc. when this happened for the first time, but there are no further ill effects.
I also remember that he constructed some form of wind turbine to keep the ship powered, as its own power supply was expiring; I think this caught fire when he tried to move the ship to a different location at one point.
Meanwhile, the chap has discovered intelligent aliens down by the local lake, apparently attempting to communicate by changing patterns on their large eyes; he attempts to use the computer to analyse this, and it runs out of printer paper near the end (the rest of the data just flashed by on the screen).
Eventually, the poor chap starts suffering from ill health, and the computer itself begins to malfunction (displaying incorrect information abot aspects of the ships operation). He finally exits for the last time (noticing that something was flashing on the compter screen, but ignoring what it says), and ends up dying in the presence of the aliens by the lake.
This was a really good story, and my description above doesn't really do it justice - but it was around 40 years ago, so my memory of it is now rather vegue. Does this story description ring any bells for anybody?
The basic story is that one survivor has landed on an alien planet in a small spaceship, and the main mothership has apparently been destroyed, and is in several pieces (along with the rest of the crew, presumably). The on-board computer is not being cooperative, as it intends to shut down the ship soon, in order to conserve energy for eventual return to the mothership. The chap firstly plans to work around this by severee means, such as drilling holes through the hulll to let in external air, etc. But he finally manages to persuade the computer to keep the ship running for his benefit (after it has itself ascertained that the mothership is in a bad way and therefore not recoverable).
The alien atmosphere can support life, but he currently goes outside in a sealed suit, where plastic compound is sprayed on the suit at both exit and entry, and then peeled off and disposed of, thereby sealing in any contaminents. But this eventually runs out, as does just about everything else he is using, so he eventually has to persuade the computer to let him go outside without the suits - I remenber that the computer was displaying contaimination alert, etc. when this happened for the first time, but there are no further ill effects.
I also remember that he constructed some form of wind turbine to keep the ship powered, as its own power supply was expiring; I think this caught fire when he tried to move the ship to a different location at one point.
Meanwhile, the chap has discovered intelligent aliens down by the local lake, apparently attempting to communicate by changing patterns on their large eyes; he attempts to use the computer to analyse this, and it runs out of printer paper near the end (the rest of the data just flashed by on the screen).
Eventually, the poor chap starts suffering from ill health, and the computer itself begins to malfunction (displaying incorrect information abot aspects of the ships operation). He finally exits for the last time (noticing that something was flashing on the compter screen, but ignoring what it says), and ends up dying in the presence of the aliens by the lake.
This was a really good story, and my description above doesn't really do it justice - but it was around 40 years ago, so my memory of it is now rather vegue. Does this story description ring any bells for anybody?
