Randy.”
When their prolonged greeting was over, Randy introduced his father to
the Kentons. Ted’s hand was almost lost in the large, powerful grip of
Mr. Matthews.
“You’re just in time for breakfast, Mr. Matthews,” Mrs. Kenton said.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had a home-cooked meal,” the man
answered wistfully. “I’d like to join you.”
As they were eating, Dr. Matthews heard the story of his son’s adoption
by the Kentons. Then he said, “I can’t thank you folks enough for taking
care of my boy just as if he were one of your own.”
[Illustration: _“Pops!” Randy cried._]
“Randy _has_ been one of us,” Mrs. Kenton said warmly.
“What do you say about that?” his father asked. “Do you want to leave
these nice people?”
Randy looked uncertain. It was a situation he had given little thought
to before. “I don’t really like leaving them,” Randy said hesitantly.
Then he seemed to have an idea. “I’ve got it, Dad! Why can’t you come
and live here?”
Mr. Matthews laughed. “I’m afraid that’s carrying hospitality too far.
No, we’ll build us a house of our own, as close by as we can. Until we
get an allotment of housing material, we’ll get a room in headquarters.”
“There’s no use both of you living there,” Mrs. Kenton said. “Why not
led Randy stay on here until your house is ready to move into?”
“Sure,” Ted put in. “Why can’t Randy do that?” He had been saddened at
the thought of Randy leaving the household. It had seemed as though
Randy was going to be with them always, for he had not believed that
Randy’s father was ever coming back.
Randy thought this was a fine idea. Ted could see that he did not like
parting with the Kentons any more than they did with him. Mr. Matthews
was reluctant to take further advantage of the Kenton hospitality, but
at last was talked into the proposition.
The children went along with Randy’s father back toward town, following
along in the Kenton boat. Mr. Matthews said he’d arrange for Randy to
have the day off from school so that the two of them could have a good
visit.
The young Kentons were glad to be back in the thick of things. They
found school particularly interesting that day, because a field trip was
announced by Mr. Garland.
“Every year this class is given an exploring field trip over certain
areas of the planet so that you can get a firsthand knowledge of Mars’s
geography,” the instructor declared. “The trip is by plane and will last
two days. You must have your parents’ consent, of course.”
That afternoon, as Ted and Jill left school, Ted said, “What do you
think of that trip, Sis?”
“It sounds like fun!” she said. “I hope we can go.”
“I’d like to, too, but don’t forget Mom would be by herself.”
“I’d forgotten about that,” Jill said disappointedly. “Mother would tell
us to go on, if we asked her, I know, but I still wouldn’t want to leave
her. There are so many things that could happen.”
“We’ll just have to forget it then,” Ted said. “Maybe we can make it
another time.”
The two kept a brooding silence, and Ted wondered if Jill was as
disappointed as he was. When Randy found out that they had decided not
to go, he said he did not care to go either.
That night Ted had a dream. In it he was exploring on the great barren
desert with Jill and Randy but they wore no helmets and it seemed as
though they could hardly get their breath. They gasped and choked, and
the dream grew into a nightmare of terror. Suddenly, Ted woke. He sat up
in bed in a cold sweat, feeling a strange lightheadedness. His breath
was coming hard into his lungs.
It had not only been a dream. Something had happened to the atmosphere
in the house.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
_The Peril Continued_
“Randy, wake up!”
Ted was jostling his bedmate. Randy opened sleepy eyes. He seemed to be
unaffected by the reduced air pressure in the room. Ted remembered that
people vary in their reaction to this.
But when Ted told him of the danger, Randy bounced out of bed with no
further prompting. Ted switched on a light, and just as he was reading
the air-pressure gauge on the wall, he heard a shrill whistle in the
house. It was the air alarm that had gone off automatically. Ted could
see that the gauge read dangerously low.
If he and Randy and the others did not get into space suits in a hurry
they would suffer serious consequences, one of which could be an attack
of the “bends.” At worst, they would lose consciousness and die of
anoxia—oxygen starvation.
Even before Ted could leave the room to rouse his mother and sister,
both were standing at the boys’ door.
“We’ve got to get on space suits right away!” Ted told them. “It looks
like all the air pressure in the house is leaking out!”
They went immediately to the closet and began dragging out space dress
in a mad flurry of fear. They pulled on the suits and helmets with haste
and inflated the airtight outfits with fresh, pressurized oxygen from
the small tanks on their backs.
“What do you think has happened to the air drum in the basement?” Mrs.
Kenton asked her son over her helmet radio.
“I don’t know, but Randy and I can go down there and see,” Ted answered.
The boys went downstairs, made a light, and walked over to the giant
metal tank recessed in one of the walls. Checking the gauges on the
tank, Ted turned to Randy with a frown.
“There’s nothing wrong with this,” Ted said.
“Then where is the trouble?” Randy asked.
[Illustration]
“There must be a leak somewhere in the house,” Ted said. “We’ve got to
find out.”
The boys went upstairs, and Ted told his mother and sister that all of
them should spread out and search the entire house for a leak. There
were emergency sealers on hand to plug such a leak when it was found.
The sealers were only temporary, but they would last until a full repair
could be made by a repairman.
Each of them took a room and worked toward the middle of the house in
their search, all lights having been turned on to give maximum
illumination. The job was no easy one. Even the slightest crack anywhere
would be sufficient to cause the loss of pressure; it was just like a
tire tube with a tiny puncture. Ted was the first to finish his assigned
area. He had found nothing. Presently Randy was through, then Mrs.
Kenton, then Jill. No one had found a leak anywhere, and the entire
house had been covered.
“We must have missed it somewhere!” Ted said. “We’ve wasted a whole
hour!”
“The spare cartridges your father told us to have filled!” Randy
suddenly exclaimed. “We didn’t do it!”
“We forgot to in all the excitement after he left!” Ted groaned.
“What’ll we do?” Mrs. Kenton asked, horrified. “In another hour or so,
we’ll have used up the air in our suits!”
“Can’t we refill our suit cartridges from the air drum downstairs?” Jill
asked.
Ted shook his head. “It’s not built that way.”
“Then we must phone for help right away,” Mrs. Kenton said and rushed
off to the radiophone.
In a few moments she was back. “They’ll send someone from town with
spare cartridges right away,” she said, “but the man said we couldn’t
get a repairman until morning to fix the leak. We’ll have to stay in our
space suits if we don’t find the leak.”
“Then let’s look for it again,” Ted suggested.
Once more they spread out all over the house, but this time they changed
areas, so that if a mistake had been made before there was less chance
of repeating it this time. They renewed their search, and it was not
until all were through, again without having found the leak, that they
realized that another hour had passed and the man with the spare
cartridges had not shown up.
“The gauge in my helmet shows I’ve got only ten minutes of air left!”
Jill said.
The others checked their gauges. All showed about ten minutes’ supply
remaining. And there was no guarantee that the spare cartridges would
arrive in that time.
Just as Mrs. Kenton was going to the radiophone to call the air-supply
center again, the phone buzzed and she answered it. After listening a
moment, she turned to the children with a white face. “The man’s boat
developed some trouble on the way. He says he can’t get here for fifteen
minutes.”
“That’ll be too late!” Jill cried.
Mrs. Kenton relayed this information and then said, “He wants to know if
we have any neighbors close by we can borrow from.”
“I know it’ll take us more than ten minutes to get there and back!” Ted
answered, recalling the goodly distance to their closest neighbor.
Mrs. Kenton reported this and then, after listening for several seconds,
she finally hung up. “He says that he’ll call back to headquarters and
get an emergency truck here as quickly as possible. But he can’t be
certain that it will get here in time either.”
Jill began sobbing. Ted could see his mother’s lips trembling, but she
was trying to be brave. Mrs. Kenton hugged Jill to her, trying to calm
her. Ted saw Randy fidgeting nervously. His own stomach felt queasy, and
waves of terror went through him as he thought of the consequences of
running out of air.
“Come on, Ted,” Randy said finally to his friend, going from the hall
into the living room. “We’ve just got to find that leak. If we can find
it and plug it, the house pressure will rise to normal in a couple of
minutes. I remember our own place doing that once before!”
“But we’ve gone over the whole place twice!” Ted argued. “There’s no
hope!”
“Either we’ve passed the leak without seeing it,” Randy went on, “or the
leak is in a spot that we didn’t look at.”
“But there isn’t any place we didn’t look!” Ted said. “Of course, there
are some places we couldn’t get to, like....”
They both thought of it at the same time. Both boys’ eyes shifted to the
drainage hole in the center of the plastic floor. Here was one spot they
had not been able to check. There was a grillwork molded into the
plastic that was not easily removable.
“Suppose it is the drain hole, though,” Randy said. “How can we find
out?”
[Illustration]
“I’ve got it,” Ted answered. “We’ll plug up the whole thing with a
sealer, then check the room gauge to see if the pressure builds up.”
A rubberoid sealing patch was taken out of its case and applied over the
hole. They flattened it out tightly to assist the adhesive to cling fast
in place. Then all four of them went over to the wall to watch the
pressure gauge.
A minute passed, and the needle failed to move even the tiniest bit. If
this did not work, they knew they would surely be lost, because from
where they stood, they could see outside for quite a distance, and still
no one was coming.
Over his radio, Ted heard the nervous intake of breath from the others.
He knew his hurried breathing must sound the same to them. Actually,
fear was hastening their doom because the more scared they were the more
oxygen they used up.
Ted stole a look at his helmet gauge. Only three minutes of air
remained! His eyes turned to the wall gauge again. He wished he could
put out his hand and push it along toward normal. How desperately he
wished for it to move!
Ted thought he noticed a flicker of the needle. He blinked his eyes.
Yes, it had moved! The others had seen it too.
“It moved!” cried Jill, almost hysterically.
“It certainly did!” her mother burst out. “I saw it!”
The needle continued to climb toward normal. Ted had nothing to say. He
was so filled with relief that he was speechless for the moment.
They were all so concerned over the snaillike movement of that
all-important needle that they paid no attention to the last few
dwindling draughts of air in their suits. Ted was the first to realize
that his tank was empty. He began feeling that same lightheadedness he
had experienced in his room.
“Our suits,” he cried out. “Pull them off! The room is just about
normal!”
He unclipped his own helmet, then pulled it off and drank in precious
gulps of fresh air. The others followed suit. Soon the needle was
vertical, indicating that normal pressure and air supply had been
restored.
It was five minutes before a light came swiftly across the desert,
moving in their direction. They heard the pop of an exhaust a moment
later as a big-wheeled truck pulled up to a roaring stop outside.
Ted knew it must be the arrival of the emergency cartridges. But they
had been five minutes late. A shudder shook him as he realized what a
close call this had been. Had they not found the leak when they did,
none of them in the house would now be alive to greet the men.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
_Disappointment_
The next afternoon, when Ted, Jill, and Randy arrived home from school,
Mrs. Kenton told them that the repairmen had taken care of the leak in
the drain. It seemed that the hole had been partially stopped up so that
the water had collected and frozen in it, causing the pipe to crack.
Jill had been impatient to talk ever since she had gotten in the house.
Now her chance had come. “Mother, you know what Mr. Garland wants us to
do?” she asked eagerly.
Mrs. Kenton smiled. “What does he want you to do?” she asked.
“He wants us to bring Yank to school for a demonstration lesson in
Martian zoology,” Ted broke in.
Jill’s face clouded over with disappointment. “I wanted to tell her,”
she muttered.
“Sorry!” Ted said. “I didn’t know it was a secret.”
Jill slapped at him playfully, but Ted ducked in time.
“You little clowns stop performing and get ready for supper,” Mrs.
Kenton said. “We’re eating early because I have a surprise for you.”
“A surprise!” Jill echoed. “What is it?”
Her mother smiled secretly but did not answer. Jill ran off to her room
and the boys went to theirs. When the children had dressed and washed,
they seated themselves at the dining-room table. Mrs. Kenton brought in
a large platter of real roast beef.
“This is the surprise!” Jill said.
“If it isn’t, I’ll settle for it!” Ted put in.
Beef was a rarity on Martian tables. It was brought in only occasionally
on the rocket supply ships. Most meat was of the dehydrated and cube
variety that took less space.
“No, this is not the surprise I was talking about,” Mrs. Kenton said,
“although it was to me when the supply boat drove up this morning with
special rations.”
“Do you mean there is still another?” Jill asked.
Her mother nodded and went on. “The beef took only a few minutes to
roast in the electronic oven. I remember my grandmother making so much
of a pressure cooker. She probably would never have believed there would
be an oven of the future that cooked in even less time than the pressure
cooker and without any heat whatsoever.”
When the main course of the meal was over and apple pie was brought in,
the children were sure this was the surprise Mrs. Kenton had promised.
She said the supply boat had brought the fresh apples with the meat. But
even the treat of apple pie was not the special surprise.
When supper was over Mrs. Kenton conducted the children into the living
room and had them gather around a recording machine owned by their
father. Mrs. Kenton set a spool of wire rotating and told them to
listen.
“Hello, kids!” came a voice.
“Father!” Jill exclaimed.
They listened to a message addressed especially to them. When it was
over, Mrs. Kenton explained that their father had called by remote
broadcast from his distant work during the day. Then he had had her make
a special wire recording for them so that they could hear it later. Mrs.
Kenton told them this was the surprise. The children admitted that this
was an even greater one than the beef and the apple pie.
“I thought Father sounded sort of sad or disappointed,” Jill commented.
“You were right, dear,” Mrs. Kenton replied. “Their work hasn’t gone
along as well as they expected. They had a small landslide that buried
the best of their diggings, which will take larger machinery than
they’ve got to unearth. On top of that, the tracks they thought would
prove to be a clue to the disappearing Martians aren’t human at all but
belong to a group of animals they have already classified.”
“Gee!” Ted murmured sympathetically, remembering how enthusiastic his
father had been before he had left. Now the greatest mystery on
Mars—that of the disappearing Martians—was just as baffling as before.
“Because of this,” Mrs. Kenton said, “they’re ending the expedition
ahead of time and coming home.”
“That’s why he said he’d be seeing us shortly,” Randy said.
“I’m glad to hear that, anyway,” Jill murmured.
“When will he be back?” Ted asked.
“Within two or three days, he said,” his mother replied.
“That will be before the class goes on the ...” Jill burst out, then
covered her mouth with her hand as she caught herself.
“Before the class goes on what?” Mrs. Kenton asked.
“We’ll have to tell her now,” Jill said lamely to the boys.
“The class is going on a sight-seeing rocket-plane tour of Mars next
week,” Ted explained.
His mother looked at Jill curiously. “But why such a secret about it?”
“We just thought you wouldn’t be especially interested,” Jill said,
“since we weren’t going.”
“Don’t you want to?” Mrs. Kenton asked.
“Oh, yes!” Jill said. “Only....”
A knowing look came into Mrs. Kenton’s eyes. “I see! You didn’t tell me
about it and show your interest because you didn’t want to leave me here
alone! That’s it, isn’t it?”
Mrs. Kenton threw an arm around each of her children. “That was a very
unselfish thing for you to do,” she said. “But now that Father will be
back sooner than he expected, you’ll be able to go after all.”
“Can we really, Mother?” Jill asked enthusiastically, her eyes full of
stars.
“Will it be dangerous?” Mrs. Kenton asked cautiously.
“There have been lots of these trips made already,” Randy volunteered.
“There hasn’t been any trouble yet.”
“Well, you have my permission,” Mrs. Kenton said, “but your Father will
have to agree too.”
“But tomorrow’s the last day we can make reservations!” Jill protested.
“If we wait until he comes, we can’t make it!”
“Go ahead and make your reservations then,” her mother said. “I don’t
believe your father will object if I don’t. But if he does, you can
cancel your seats.”
“We’ll lose our money if we do that,” Ted said, “but I guess that can’t
be helped.” Suddenly Ted looked fearful. “Dad did leave the check-book,
didn’t he?”
“Yes, he left it,” his mother assured him with a smile.
“Pops is coming out here tonight for a visit,” Randy said. “Now that you
and Jill are going on the trip, Ted, I think I’ll ask Pops to let me go
along too!”
“That’ll be great!” Ted said. “All three of us will go together.”
The next morning the children got Yank up at an early hour so that he
could go off to school with them.
“You’d better be on your good behavior today,” Jill warned the color
bear as they climbed into the boat. “If you cut up like you do in the
house, Mr. Garland may flunk us!”
Yank looked at her solemnly as though he understood. But then his broad
mouth widened in a grin as if he were telling the girl that he had no
intention of taking her remarks seriously! As soon as the boat moved
down the waterway, Yank stood up.
“Sit down, Yank,” Randy told him. “You’re rocking the boat!”
Yank paid no attention to this reproof. He was enjoying himself.
“Stop him!” Jill squealed. “He’ll turn us over!”
Randy rose unsteadily to his feet and moved toward the rear. He made a
lurch at him, but Yank leaned out of his reach and looked back, grinning
merrily.
“You naughty bear!” Jill cried, half in fear and half in anger.
Randy leaned forward again and pulled Yank back on top of himself with a
fierce jerk. As Randy went down, the bear rolled off him and up on the
edge of the boat.
[Illustration: _Yank went over the side with a splash._]
Randy lunged at him, but Yank’s fur slipped from the boy’s fingers. Yank
went over the side with a splash into the frigid water. As soon as Yank
touched the water, Randy made a grab at him and caught one of his
forepaws. Yank screeched in shock and fear at the sudden freezing
plunge.
Ted slowed the boat down and turned the wheel over to Jill while he
helped Randy pull the Martian animal aboard again. Yank looked
thoroughly beaten as he flopped, dripping and cold, into the bottom of
the boat. His round little ears were drooping sadly, and the corners of
his mouth were turned down. He looked more like a polar bear now,
because crystals of frost were growing all over him.
In spite of themselves, the children had to laugh at their little pet’s
predicament. As the shiny spikes of frost popped out on his face, Yank
would brush at them furiously with his paws. Even his eyebrows were
growing icy. This further increased the laughter of the children.
“I guess that’ll teach you to behave, Yank!” Ted chuckled, and offered
to take the wheel back.
“Let me drive the rest of the way,” Jill said.
Ted yielded to her, and he was pleased at the skill with which she drove
and docked at the science building.
The children were a little ahead of time, and this gave them a chance
before class to tell Mr. Garland about their wish to make the trip with
the others. Randy had gotten his father’s permission the night before.
Mr. Garland frowned as he looked over his list, and Ted had a sinking
feeling.
The teacher looked up. “Two of you can go, but not all three, I’m
afraid. Yesterday I thought that quite a few more could go, but I found
out last night I had omitted several names from my list. Which one of
you wants to drop out?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
_Yank in School_
At this surprising remark from their teacher, the young folks’ faces
drooped with disappointment. For several seconds none of the three had
anything to say. Mr. Garland idly fingered the two checks they had
handed him.
Finally Randy spoke up. “I’ll drop out,” he said. “I’ve been on a trip
like this before with my father, but Ted and Jill haven’t.”
“That’s a fine decision, Randy,” Mr. Garland said. He handed one of the
checks back and added the Kenton children’s names to his list.
For the moment, all interest in the trip was gone for Ted. He knew Randy
must be keenly disappointed. Although until late yesterday none of them
had expected to go, they had talked a long time last night with Mr.
Matthews over the exciting things they would see. Randy had been quite
as interested as Ted and Jill about the coming adventure.
Suddenly Ted said: “Take Jill’s and my name off the list too, Mr.
Garland. I don’t think two of us should go if the third one can’t.”
“That’s right,” Jill agreed.
“That doesn’t make sense, you two,” Randy protested.
Mr. Garland looked up. “There’s no sense both of you missing the trip
for the sake of one. It’s the educational opportunity of a lifetime.”
Ted then gave in, although he knew it was not going to be nearly so much
fun without Randy along.
The discussion ended abruptly when Ted heard a shriek from one of the
incoming pupils. He turned and was shocked to see Yank chasing one of
the girls toward the back of the room.
“Yank, come back here!” Jill called, when she saw what was going on.
But Yank was once more enjoying himself. He was grunting happily as he
pursued the girl around the back of the room, and along the side toward
the front. The bear’s three owners caught the little fellow as he was
coming around again.
“I just patted him and he took out after me!” gasped the girl who had
been chased.
“He was just playing,” Ted told her. “He couldn’t hurt you if he tried.
His teeth are only made for chewing soft flowers.”
Mr. Garland restored order and announced that zoology would be the first
subject of the day so that the active Yank could then be taken outside.
First Mr. Garland stood Yank on the platform at the head of the class
with Ted to help keep him still.
The teacher pointed out the physical characteristics of the Martian
animal, touching Yank’s paws, head, jaws, and other parts with a
pointer. Yank followed the movement of the stick with his eyes. Then the
whole class started giggling. The bear was looking at the stick
cross-eyed.
Ted had to force down a grin. He could see that Mr. Garland was having
the same trouble. When Yank got tired of following the stick with his
eyes, he seized it in his mouth and began gnawing on it. This brought a
burst of laughter from the pupils.
Ted took the stick from Yank, and the bear thought this was a signal for
them to wrestle. At home, this was the way Ted usually got him to play.
“Get off me, Yank,” Ted muttered in a low, angry voice. “We’re at
school, not home! I thought we warned you to behave yourself here!
You’re just trying to show off!”
Yank seemed to get the tone of Ted’s outburst, even if he could not
understand the words. He stopped his foolishness and actually kept as
still as a little gentleman for the next few minutes as Mr. Garland
continued to demonstrate.