into the ore car! We have to get out of here fast! Sue, hold the bird up
close to your suit!”
The workers dropped their tools as if they were red hot and climbed into
the car. Mr. Shannon helped Sue and Steve on, then jumped on himself.
Dr. Harding pressed the electric button that was the signal to the
operator in the main cavern to move the car. The car began to roll down
the track. It picked up speed as Dr. Harding kept pressing the button.
“Leaking gas, Dr. Harding?” Mr. Shannon asked worriedly.
The chief engineer nodded. He sniffed the air like a hunting dog after a
scent. “Take a deep breath, everyone, then hold it!”
Steve thought his lungs would burst, but finally Dr. Harding let them
take another deep breath. By the time they had taken one more, the car
had reached the main cavern. As it rolled to a stop, Dr. Harding jumped
down and ran over to the car operator.
Steve saw a door slide down and close off the tunnel where they had come
out. Then the little man gave a deep sigh and took off his black-rimmed
glasses to wipe them.
Sue and Steve watched Bud hopefully. He was standing more steadily on
Sue’s finger now.
“I think he’ll be all right,” the chief engineer said. “We sure owe Bud
a lot for warning us the way he did. Something must have happened to the
warning machine. It was supposed to set off a siren.”
“If it weren’t for Bud we might have been overcome before we could have
gotten out of there!” Mr. Shannon added.
“You’re so right!” Dr. Harding said. “The men will go back in there in
gas masks to find the leak and see what’s wrong with the warning
machine.”
“We’re plenty lucky!” Steve sighed, his spine still prickly from their
narrow escape.
Sue kissed the budgy. “You’re a hero, Bud,” she told him, “and we love
you!”
Bud blinked lazily. Then as if to show that he was all right again, he
squawked, “Rocket away!”
_THE BIG SHOW ON TITAN_
The space freighter had landed on Titan, the largest moon in all the
Solar System. The Shannon twins had been anxious to reach this moon of
Saturn because their father had told them that something very exciting
might happen here before they left.
There was still another reason why the children had looked forward to
the landing. They would meet a boy of their own age who was the son of a
worker. He had been living on Titan for the past two years and would be
able to show them around.
Steve and Sue came down the outside “gangway” of the cargo ship and
stepped onto the frozen ground of the distant world. The twins wore
space suits, of course, for the air outside was extremely cold and it
was poisonous as well with raw methane and ammonia.
Steve saw beautiful Saturn, with its colored rings, filling much of the
blue sky. Titan was a world of close mountains, worn smooth by lots of
windy weather. A film of glistening ice covered the peaks like caps of
glass.
“Look up there, Sue!” Steve said. “Over our heads! That’s the famous
skyport of Titan!”
“I wish we could go up there!” Sue said.
“Maybe we’ll get the chance,” answered Steve.
Ahead of them stood a rounded plastic dome. Men were carrying into it
cartons of supplies which the space freighter had brought. The twins’
father, who was an official of the American Space Supply Company, was
still aboard to take care of the unloading.
A boy came out of the domed building. “Are you the Shannons?” he asked
over his space radio.
“Yes, we are,” Steve replied.
“I’m Bobby King.”
Sue and Steve said they were glad to meet him. He asked if they would
like to go up and see the skyport.
Both the young Shannons answered a quick, “Sure!” together.
They followed their new friend into the plastic dome. Bobby King pointed
to an overhead cable. Hanging from the heavy cord was a cable car.
“All aboard!” Bobby called, like a train conductor.
Sue and Steve giggled with pleasure as they entered the car, followed by
Bobby. Bobby pushed a switch and the cable car began to move.
“We’re going up like a corkscrew,” Bobby said.
Round and round, right out of the top of the building, moved the cable
car. Up and up it went. It took about ten minutes to reach the top. As
soon as they got out, two men passed them who were talking about a storm
that was on the way.
“Boy, if there’s a storm coming, you two are sure in luck!” Bobby told
Sue and Steve.
Steve and Sue looked at one another, puzzled. Why should their young
friend be pleased over a coming storm?
They saw before them a space that looked as flat as a highway and larger
than a football field. There was a row of hangars along the far side.
“Wow, we sure must be high!” Steve burst out. They seemed to be almost
on a level with the mountains.
“We’re a whole mile off the ground,” Bobby told him. “The skyport rests
on the corners of two mountain ridges.”
They went over to one of the clear plastic walls that edged the skyport.
“Gee, the freighter sure is little down there!” Sue said.
It almost took Steve’s breath away. The big space ship indeed looked no
larger than a toy down below.
“Why did they go to such trouble to build this?” Steve asked.
“Because there wasn’t any place flat enough on the ground,” Bobby
answered. “My father says they need a main skyport on Titan because
there are so many companies here digging for uranium. The colonists fly
here to get their supplies and mail.”
“I see some dark clouds over the mountains,” Sue said. “Does that mean a
storm is coming?”
Bobby’s helmet nodded. “It sure does! You two are the luckiest ones! You
got here right at the start of the storm season.”
Steve and Sue were still puzzled as to why Bobby wanted it to storm.
Bobby showed his guests a faint star burning through the blue
atmosphere. “That’s Earth,” he told them, “750 million miles away. My
father thinks we can go back for a visit in a few weeks. I’ll be glad.”
“Where do you live here, Bobby?” Sue asked.
“My father and I stay in an apartment a little way from here,” Bobby
answered.
“How about school?” Steve wanted to know. “Do they have one on Titan?”
Bobby shook his head. “My father teaches me. He’s out with some
prospectors today.”
Bobby showed them Titan’s other nine sister moons, which looked like
glowing fireballs. Steve saw that most of the daylight came from Saturn
because the sun was so far away. It wasn’t nearly as bright here as it
was on Earth.
“I wish we could run over to Saturn for a visit,” Sue said, jokingly.
“You don’t really, Sue,” Bobby told her. “You couldn’t stand up in its
heavy gravity. Saturn’s almost as big as Jupiter, you know.”
“What are Saturn’s rings made of?” Steve asked.
“Oodles and oodles of rocks,” Bobby replied. “They are traveling so fast
that they make the rings look like one solid piece.”
Wind was beginning to howl around them and this seemed to make Bobby
very excited.
The coming storm must be something special, Steve thought. His curiosity
had been aroused strongly.
The clouds gathered darker and more thickly behind the mountains. The
wind was driving harder.
“Hadn’t we better go inside?” Sue asked, worriedly.
“Shucks, no!” Bobby said. “It won’t be any fun unless we’re right out in
it! There won’t be any rain. It’s too cold on Titan for rain.”
Suddenly the three heard a loud siren wail.
“That means a jet plane is coming in,” Bobby said. “All planes have to
land when word of a storm gets around.”
The plane’s wheels touched down and the ship rolled along until a hook
on it caught a line that stretched across the runway. The line brought
the plane to a sharp halt.
The jet’s wings were folded down and the ship was pushed off to a
hangar. Two more ships landed afterward. Then a blinding flash lighted
up the sky. It made Steve and Sue blink and jump in fright.
“Look!” Bobby exclaimed. “The storm has begun!”
Other men had come out to see what was going to happen and they lined up
along the edges of the skyport with the children.
Bobby pointed to a sparkling balloon of light that burst into a blossom
of sparks over the mountains. A moment later a red dagger flash skipped
across the peaks. During all this there were loud crashes and rumblings.
Steve was scared and thrilled at the same time.
“It’s just like fireworks!” Sue called out.
Now Steve could understand why Bobby had looked forward to the storm. He
guessed, too, that this was the exciting surprise their father had said
might happen while they were here.
An orange pinwheel, like a Fourth of July sparkler, rose from a mountain
top and looped upward. It grew bigger and bigger and fainter and fainter
at the same time. It was really a beauty.
“What causes the fireworks?” Steve asked above the noise.
“Partly strong wind,” Bobby said loudly, “and partly Titan’s gases
exploding against the mountain tops!”
They watched spellbound for fifteen minutes, then a half hour. The
Shannons were sure they had never seen anything quite so breathtaking as
this.
At one time a row of peaks seemed to glow with a sheet of red flame. The
flame danced and flickered like a forest fire for a long time before it
faded out.
The children had been enjoying themselves so thoroughly that they knew
nothing of the peril that was heading their way.
The first warning came when one of the skyport men standing nearby
shouted over his space suit radio. Steve whirled in alarm. His heart
seemed to stop beating completely for a terrible moment.
A tardy plane had come in for a landing on the sky platform. But the
howling wind had kept everyone from hearing the warning siren.
Because of the fierce blowing, the plane had not hooked firmly to the
braking line. It scooted off to the side and was heading for the very
spot where Bobby, Steve and Sue stood.
“Bobby!” Steve cried. “Get out of the way!” As Bobby ducked for safety,
Steve also moved quickly. Sue screamed as Bobby grabbed her hastily by
her space glove. He had to jerk her sharply in order to get her out of
the path of the runaway plane.
The plane crashed into the plastic wall of the skyport, tearing out a
section of wall as though it were thin cardboard. The ship was left
dangling on the very edge as if ready to fall a mile to the ground.
“The poor pilot!” Sue cried. “Oh, I can’t look!”
But the skyport men had come running quickly over and together they
pulled the jet plane back to safety. They helped the scared pilot out.
He walked shakily off into one of the hangars.
“Whew! That was close!” Steve breathed. “For him and us, too!”
“My heart is still thumping like a drum!” Bobby said.
As for Sue, she was too upset to say anything at all.
They turned to look at the fireworks to take their minds off the
accident. The wonderful ending of the show almost made them forget it
completely.
They saw a dazzling white light burst like an empty volcano. The banner
of fire rose as high into the sky as huge Saturn. Then it spilled over
like a great fountain. It changed into purple, then blue, green and red.
Before dying out, it gave the big planet a lovely ruddy glow, showing up
its rings like a gleaming necklace of rubies. That was the end of
Nature’s grand performance.
“Wow, wasn’t that terrific?” Steve asked. “A show like that in a
grandstand on Earth would cost you three-and-a-half.”
“Maybe four!” Sue chimed in.
“You can’t see this show anywhere on Earth, Steve,” Bobby said. “Titan
is the only place. And the good thing about it is that it’s all for
free!”
_ADVENTURE ON THE SUN’S DOORSTEP_
Sue and Steve Shannon watched the magic world of stardust through a port
of the rocket freighter. The ship was moving under power of its atomic
engines, headed toward the sun.
They had one more cargo stop to make before returning to their beloved
soil on the Earth.
The twins heard the clack of magnetic soles behind them. Without such
shoes holding them to the floor, space travelers would float about
helplessly like wingless birds.
“Hi, kids,” greeted their father. “Growing tired of the view?”
“I guess I am, Dad,” Steve admitted. His blue eyes were tired.
“How far away is Apollo’s Chariot now?” Sue asked.
Mr. Shannon grinned. “That’s the umpteenth time you two have asked that.
But I suppose I’m as restless as you are to get back to Mom in
Arkansas.”
Hearing this made Steve suddenly homesick. There was really no place
like home, just like the poet had said. Steve knew Sue felt the same
way. He had seen a wistful look in her hazel eyes every time they had
talked of Little Rock.
The seemingly endless days finally did end. The three Shannons went up
into the lookout dome with the crewmen. The dome was covered by a
darkened plastic screen to cut down the blinding glare of the sun, which
was very close.
It was a heart-stopping sight for Sue and Steve. The planet Mercury
covered the face of the sun like a black plate. Streaming out from the
edges were mountainous tongues of living fire. Mr. Shannon called this
flaming halo the sun’s _chromosphere_.
“Gee, what a thing to see!” Steve gasped.
“It’s—it’s unbelievable!” Sue added, breathless.
“Indeed, it is,” Mr. Shannon agreed. “See that thing like a lighted
wheel just ahead of us? That’s Apollo’s Chariot. It was named after the
famous Greek sun god, you know.”
Sue and Steve knew that Apollo’s Chariot was really a space laboratory
that was a home for scientists who were studying the sun. They had been
the ones who had given their tiny world its colorful nickname. It was
protected with asbestos and other special material to shield it from the
heat as it circled the great star, month after month, year after year.
“We had to contact Apollo’s Chariot while Mercury was shading our ship
from the sun’s rays,” Mr. Shannon said. “We aren’t protected like
Apollo’s Chariot is.”
“Mercury seems as big as the sun, the way it covers it completely,”
Steve remarked.
“That’s because we’re so close to Mercury,” his father explained.
“Actually, the sun is so much bigger it’s like comparing a pinpoint to a
grapefruit!”
In the midnight darkness between the ships, giant searchlights had to be
turned on. Then the scientists on the other ship came out onto their
loading platform to receive their cargo. Conversation was carried on by
means of space suit radios with those aboard the freighter, who stood on
their own outside platform.
“Why can’t we get closer to Apollo’s Chariot?” Steve asked Biff Warren,
who was the twins’ favorite among the crewmen. Biff was piling boxes and
crates at the edge of the platform.
“Space regulations,” answered Biff. “If a meteor should hit one of us,
the other ship would explode too if we were close. Also, rocket tubes
are so tricky that you never know when one is going to misfire and send
your ship scooting off suddenly in the wrong direction.”
One end of a double cable was fastened to rings on the freighter’s
platform. Then the other end was tossed across the space between the two
ships and attached by the scientists to their own side.
Steve saw the crewmen around him pick up cords from out of the cable
equipment box. They fastened one end to buckles on their suits and the
other to the cable. Steve guessed that the lines were a safety measure
to keep the men from drifting off into space as they carried the cargo
across.
The first crewman picked up a crate as lightly as if it were a pile of
feathers. Then with his foot he shoved off from the platform.
He guided the crate through the emptiness with his gloved hands and the
men on the opposite platform helped him aboard. Another crewman stepped
off the freighter with another crate. Then another crewman with another
piece of cargo. The carriers returned by the other cable line.
Steve went over to his dad who, as an official of the American Space
Supply Company, was supervising the work as always. “Dad, may Sue and I
carry a box across? We’ll be careful.”
Mr. Shannon thought a moment. “I suppose it will be all right. There’s
no way you can go adrift if you fasten on to the cable. But you have to
be careful you’re snapped on securely.”
Mr. Shannon made a place for them in line. Sue in front. There was a
wait before Sue’s turn so that more crates could be placed on the
platform’s edge. The children looked beyond Apollo’s Chariot at the huge
black circle of Mercury as it masked the mighty sun.
“Biff,” Steve asked his friend as he was stacking the crates, “why
couldn’t the Apollo scientists study the sun from Mercury?”
Biff chuckled and it made a funny crackling sound over the young
Shannons’ radios. “Men will land on Mercury when they grow hides of
asbestos, Steve. It’s so hot on the sunward side that there are supposed
to be lakes and pools of lead there! The other side never sees the sun,
so you can imagine how cold it is! Think you two would like to go
there?”
“I should say not!” Sue answered for both of them.
When the next piece of cargo was ready to go over, Biff checked the
children’s safety cords. Then he let Sue push off from the platform with
a box in front of her. A few moments later, Steve followed. The boy
heard his sister giggle excitedly as they floated across. Searchlight
beams were in their eyes but they didn’t mind. Steve, too, thought this
great fun after being cramped for so long on the freighter. He looked
down at the empty space below, but he knew he could not fall and so was
not afraid. Reaching the other platform, he and his sister were helped
aboard.
“They sure are using young crewmen these days!” joked one of the
scientists, a tall man who seemed to be working harder than the others.
“Nice work, young folks!”
The scientist was in the act of changing the children’s cords over to
the returning cable when a slight mishap occurred. One of the crates
coming over bumped into him. He laughed as he again got to his feet but
his laughter quickly changed to alarm when Sue suddenly pushed off from
the platform. She had thought her cable line was secure and that she was
ready to make the exciting trip back across the gulf.
“Wait, miss!” the scientist called. “I didn’t finish fastening your
cable cord!” He reached for Sue but her suit slipped out of the fingers
of his bulky space gloves.
Steve froze for an instant in terror at what he had seen. Then without
thought of anything else except his sister’s danger, he dove right off
the platform after Sue, not realizing or caring that his own cable cord
was not fastened.
If the scientist had not grabbed for Sue she might have floated safely
across to the freighter. But by touching her he had sent her off in a
direction beneath it.
Over his radio, Steve heard her screaming for help and saw her flinging
her arms and legs about like a drowning swimmer. Steve was moving faster
than she and presently caught up with her.
“What are we going to do, Steve?” she cried, holding tightly to him. “We
can’t stop! And it’s so dark out here!”
Steve knew that unless someone came to their aid they would drift on and
on since there was no air to slow them down. But he didn’t tell Sue
this.
He remembered, as he had at times before, that a spaceman must keep his
head in an emergency. He spoke comforting words to Sue, telling her to
try to be calm, that help would be coming.
[Illustration: _He saw her flinging her arms and legs about like a
drowning swimmer_]
Even as he told her this a spear of light hit them and a voice broke in
on their radio: “Steve! Sue! Stop struggling! I’m on my way to you!”
“Biff!” Steve exclaimed, and the dread in his heart suddenly lifted. He
looked over his shoulder and saw their big friend approaching, guided by
the light that had been flashed on them from the freighter.
There was a little plume of flame trailing behind him. In a few minutes
he had caught up with them. Sue was so glad to see him she grabbed the
big spaceman and her helmet bumped against his in an attempted kiss.
“Oh, I’m so glad to see you, Biff!” she sobbed. “I was so _awfully_
scared!”
“You’re all right now,” Biff said gently. “Both of you hold on to me and
we’ll go back.”
Steve took Biff’s left arm and Sue firmly grasped one of Steve’s. Biff
carried a type of hand rocket, called a “pusher,” that he had used to
shoot himself along toward them. By pointing the rocket in the opposite
direction from which he wanted to go, the “pusher” pushed him in the
manner of the rocket tubes on the freighter.
Biff pointed the pusher away from the freighter. Steve saw a burst of
fire beside them and the three of them sped off toward the big ship. As
Sue reached the platform, her father was there to help her aboard. She
could see in his eyes the fear he had felt for them.
Steve was surprised to have the crew greet him warmly with pats on the
back. The boy turned to his father. “Why are they calling me a hero?” he
asked. “It was Biff who saved us!”
“Not taking credit away from Biff, any good spaceman would have done
what he did,” said Mr. Shannon. “But few would have attempted your trick
of jumping into space after your sister with no way of getting back.
Right, Biff?”
Biff nodded his plastic helmet. “It wasn’t the smartest thing you could
have done, Steve, but it showed your bravery. Courage counts just as
much as ability in a spaceman. Don’t ever forget that, son.”
Steve, who wanted to be a spaceman some day, would not forget it.
_THE FLYING MOUNTAIN_
Steve and Sue were playing a game as the freighter headed through space
toward Earth. It was fun trying to see who could build the higher tower
of sticks. The young Shannons were in extra good spirits. Before long
they would be seeing Mom and their home in Arkansas, after being in
space for so many months.
Steve carefully placed the last stick on his tower which was almost as
high as he could reach.
“_I_ won, Sis!” he exclaimed. But as he drew his hand away, it brushed
against the tower, causing the sticks to drift off in all directions.
“_I_ won!” Sue cried gleefully, “Yours broke up!”
Steve made a face and began picking the sticks out of the air before
they floated too far. It was lack of weight in space that made it
possible to play such a game. The twins would have hung in the air like
the sticks if their shoe soles were not held to the floor by magnetism.
“I’ll beat you next time,” Steve boasted.
Before they could start again, their father came into the room. “It
looks as though we may not be getting home as quickly as we had
expected, kids. Captain Furman has received an S. O. S. from a passenger
rocket that’s down on the asteroid, Sierra.” The twins knew an asteroid
to be one of the thousands of tiny planets in the Solar System.
“Are we going to her aid?” Steve asked.
“It depends on whether we have enough fuel or not,” his father replied.
“Even atomic fuel runs out sometime, you know. Captain Furman is talking
with his officers now. It’ll be a shame if we can’t help the _Pole
Star_—as much as I want to see Mom.”
It was just like his unselfish dad to say that, Steve thought. He felt
the same way about it. And he didn’t doubt that tender-hearted Sue was
of the same mind.
Mr. Shannon started out of the room again. “I’m going to see what they
are going to do.”
Steve and Sue went back to their game. But somehow it wasn’t as much fun
now. People were in trouble and trouble in space was often a frightening
thing.
It seemed like a long time before their father came back. He walked in
so fast that his magnetic shoes sounded like tiny hammers. “Kids,” he
said, “the captain wants to see you.”
“_Us?_” Steve asked.
“That’s right. Come quickly.”
They went out, leaving some sticks in mid-air and others drifting off.
The young Shannons walked shyly into the captain’s room where all the
officers stood. Steve felt out of place among the neatly uniformed
spacemen.
Mr. Shannon was in charge of cargo which the freighter dropped off at
different ports in space, for he was an official of the American Space
Supply Company. But he had nothing to do with the running of the ship.
“Young folks,” said the tall captain, who had a blond mustache, “we want
you to help us solve a problem.”
“Sir?” Steve asked, puzzled.
“Here it is,” went on the chief, in his booming voice. “If we go on past
Earth to Sierra to help the _Pole Star_, it’ll leave us with only a
fifty-fifty chance of having enough fuel to reach Earth. But the _Pole
Star_ is running short of supplies and their radio just went dead a
while ago. It’s too late to get help from Earth. The crew is divided on
what we should do, so I decided to call you two in to see what you
think.”
A husky crewman spoke out boldly, “What do these kids know about space,
Captain? They’re not even old enough to be out here! I say stick to our
course and get this crew and ship back safely to Earth!”
The remark angered Steve, but the spaceman looked too big to talk back
to. Sue wasn’t so timid.