Sitting in his Tin Can, the captain drifted through space listening to old audio cassettes which he'd found in the glove compartment. He sang along as best he could with the ancient songs but soon became irritated by the incessant squealing of the defective mechanism. One song even sounded as though it began with the miaowing of a rusty cat. Feeling slightly fed up with life, he decided to put himself into cryogenic sleep for a while...perhaps for ever.

 

"When I wake" he thought, "I must remember to get the pod-radio fixed".

​

Damage Report

 

All of a sudden (although it was some millions of years later or thereabouts) he was torn from slumber by the capsule alarm signal. Torn is perhaps not quite the right word; more like stretched and squished and squeezed and squashed all at the same time. Coming out of such a long sleep is not something to be taken lightly, it's not like popping down to the corner shop for a pound of sausages. After all this time, the poor craft was in a pretty dreadful state but it had managed to detect a planet which appeared to be habitable and at that very moment it was attempting to enter the upper atmosphere. The burning question was: Could it withstand such an ordeal? Would its flimsy casing resist the scorching? Would the abandoned captain survive? (three questions, in fact, but there were probably more).

And, of course, the answer was yes! Otherwise it'd be a rubbish ending and there are still two songs to go.