"Well, mebbe. But not in five minutes. Maybe not in five years. I won't
know till I get going on it."
Breadon frowned.
"I'll handle this, Malcolm," he crisped. Again to the radioman, "Well,
you get to work on it immediately. And as soon as you get it fixed,
send out an SOS advising the patrol where we are--"
"Speaking of which," insinuated Sparks, "where are we?"
Breadon glared at him wrathfully.
"Why--why on one of the satellites of Saturn, of course. Any fool can
see that!"
"O.Q. But does any fool know which one? Or shall I tell you it's Titan?
And when you know that, then what? Titan wasn't named that on account
of it was a pimple. It's a big place. What'll I tell the Patrol? _SOS.
Stranded in the middle of we-don't-know-where, somewhere on Titan,
maybe._ They'll be hunting for us till we've got whiskers down to our
knees."
Breadon's irate look vanished. He looked stricken. He said, "I--I don't
know. We have a compass--"
Once again it was Gregory Malcolm who entered into the conversation. He
had been toying, almost absentmindedly, with a funnel taken from the
skiff's stores. Into this he had poured a small portion of water; his
right forefinger was pressed to the bottom of the tube, closing it. He
said, "I can answer part of that question now. Enough to cut the search
in half, anyway. We're in the northern hemisphere of the satellite."
Maud Andrews looked at him sharply as if noticing him for the first
time in her life.
"How," she asked, "did you know that, Malcolm?"
* * * * *
Greg said, "Watch this." He released his finger at the base of the
funnel gently, carefully, taking care not to shake it. The captured
water swirled and trickled through the opening. Greg said, "Notice the
direction in which the water whirlpools? Clockwise. On the northern
hemisphere of any normally revolving heavenly body, water released
from a basin, funnel, container of any sort, swirls in that direction.
In the southern hemisphere it swirls counter-clockwise. Maybe you've
noticed in bathtubs, or--"
Breadon said impatiently, "Never mind the speeches, Malcolm. A very
clever bit of reasoning--if it's true. Do you think you can figure out
our exact latitude and longitude from that?"
Greg met his gaze levelly.
"Not from that," he said, "nor from anything else. Perhaps you've
forgotten that latitude and longitude are artificial inventions of
man's, based in one case on an imaginary 'equator,' and in the other on
an arbitrarily appointed 'line,' like Greenwich.
"But I believe I can approximate our position and state it in such a
way as to cut to a minimum the time of any search that might be made
for us. That is, if a space patrol ever comes close enough to get
within range of Sparks' radio."
"When," said Sparks, "and if I get it fixed."
"When," said Malcolm confidently, "you get it fixed."
Breadon gave in with as good grace as he could muster.
"Well, all right," he conceded grudgingly. "We'll let that rest for
now. Meanwhile, it is apparent that we can't escape Titan--or wherever
we are--immediately. That being the case, our first task will be to set
up a camp. This is as good a spot as any. We'll stay right here by the
ship. We'll use the ship to sleep in at nights--"