"Yes. Thank God for this much, Gregg. I wonder how many are alive."
In the chaos of the abandonment, many of the men's air mechanisms had
failed to operate. It is always so in times of disaster. We could see,
revolving around the wreck, and motionless against its dome, those
horrible flabby, deflated suits where the delicate Erentz mechanism
had failed. Within was only a corpse.
"Too many," I said. "And not more than four or five of us with power.
What shall we do first? Round them up? We must all get together."
His answering voice was grim. "We can tow them from the wreck. Six or
seven of us altogether have power. Do you suppose we can get away,
Gregg? Get loose from the ship before she falls?"
Only trying it could tell us that. The _Cometara_, and all of us with
her, were plunging for the Moon. We would seek out the men who were
alive and tow them in a string. If we could break the gravity pull of
the ship, and then struggle upward from the Moon, we could maintain
ourselves here in space until some rescue ship from Earth, Venus or
Mars would come and pick us up.
"You take one side, Gregg; I'll take the other. Don't go aboard; she
might collapse."
"I'll pick up the men without power and alive. The others with power
suits will do the same. Then we'll meet out here, about where we are
now?"
"Yes. And hurry, Gregg! Every mile toward the Moon makes it that much
harder. We're falling fast."
"Good luck!" I shoved away from him. And within a minute, as he went
in an arc toward the _Cometara_ bow and I toward her stern, I suddenly
thought of that returning enemy vessel. My last look through the
'scope had shown that she was returning; and then I had forgotten it.
My gaze swept the firmament now. I had no 'scope instruments within
the helmet. With the naked eye the enemy ship was not in sight. But I
knew that meant little; within a moment she could come in view and be
here if she were going at any great velocity.
There were on the _Cometara_, at the time of the disaster, some
sixty-odd men; perhaps forty had gotten away. And I could see very
soon that not more than fifteen, or less, out here were alive. Two
with power were ahead of me now, slowly floating past the wrecked dome
of the stern. One had picked up two others, found them alive and was
towing them out. They went past me, moving very slowly so that I could
see that two were all that one of us could tow and attain any velocity
at all.