"Astro! Roger!" yelled Tom. He opened his eyes and then felt the weight
on his chest. A section of the control board had fallen across him
pinning his left arm to his side. He reached for the railing around the
acceleration chair with his right and discovered he still held the
switch for the water sprinkler. He started to flip it on, then sniffed
the air, and smelling no trace of smoke, dropped the switch. He
unstrapped himself from the acceleration chair with his right hand and
then slowly, with great effort, pushed the section of the control board
off him. He stood up rubbing his left arm.
"Astro? Roger?!" he called again, and scrambled over the broken
equipment that was strewn over the deck. He stumbled over more rubble
that was once a precision instrument panel and climbed the ladder
leading to the radar deck.
"Roger!" he yelled. "Roger, are you all right?" He pushed several
shattered instruments out of the way and looked around the shambles that
once had been a room. He didn't see Roger.
He began to scramble through the litter on the deck, kicking aside
instruments that were nearly priceless, so delicately were they made.
Suddenly a wave of cold fear gripped him and he began tearing through
the rubble desperately. From beneath a heavy tube casing, he could see
the outstretched arm of Roger.
He squatted down, bending his legs and keeping his back straight. Then
gripping the heavy casing on one side, he tried to stand up. It was too
much for him. He lifted it three inches and then had to let go.
"Tom! Roger!" Tom heard the bull-like roar of Astro below him and
stumbled over to the head of the ladder.
"Up here, Astro," he yelled, "on the radar deck. Roger's pinned under
the radar scanner casing!"
Tom turned back to the casing, and looking around the littered deck
desperately, grabbed an eight-foot length of steel pipe that had been
snapped off like a twig by the force of the crash.
Barely able to lift it, he shoved it with all his strength to get the
end of the pipe beneath the casing.
"Here, let me get at that thing," growled Astro from behind. Tom stepped
back, half falling out of the Venusian's way, and watched as Astro got
down on his hands and knees, putting his shoulder against the case. He
lifted it about three inches, then slowly, still balancing the weight on
his shoulder, shifted his position, braced it with his hands and began
to straighten up. The casing came up from the floor as the huge cadet
strained against it.
"All--right--Tom--" he gasped, "see if you can get a hold on Roger and
pull him out!"
Tom scrambled back and grabbed Roger's uniform. He pulled, and slowly
the cadet's form slid from beneath the casing.
"All right, Astro," said Tom, "I've got 'im."
Astro began to lower the casing in the same manner in which he had
lifted it. He eased it back down to the floor on his knees and dropped
it the last few inches. He sat on the floor beside it and hung his head
between his knees.
"Are you all right, Astro?" asked Tom.
"Never mind me," panted Astro between deep gasps for breath, "just see
if hot-shot is O.K."
Tom quickly ran his hands up and down Roger's arms and legs, his chest,
collarbone and at last, with gently probing fingers, his head.
"No broken bones," he said, still looking at Roger, "but I don't know
about internal injuries."
"He wasn't pinned under that thing," said Astro at last. "It was resting
on a beam. No weight was on him."
"Uh--huh--ahhh--uhhhh," moaned Roger.
"Roger," said Tom gently, "Roger, are you all right?"
"Uh--huh?--Ohhhh! My head!"
"Take it easy, hot-shot," said Astro, "that head of yours is O.K.
Nothing--but _nothing_ could hurt it!"
"Ooohhhh!" groaned Roger, sitting up. "I don't know which is worse,
feeling the way I do, or waking up and listening to you again!"
Tom sat back with a smile. Roger's remark clinched it. No one was hurt.
"Well," said Astro at last, "where do we go from here?"
"First thing I suggest we do is take a survey and see what's left," said
Tom.
"I came up from the power deck," said Astro, "all the way through the
ship. You see this radar deck?" He made a sweeping gesture around the
room that looked like a junk heap. "Well, it's in good shape, compared
to the rest of the ship. The power deck has the rocket motors where the
master panel should be and the panel is ready to go into what's left of
the reactant chamber. The jet boat is nothing but a worthless piece of
junk!"
The three boys considered the fate of the jet boat soberly. Finally
Astro broke the silence with a question. "Where do you think we are?"
"Somewhere in the New Sahara desert," answered Tom. "I had the chart
projector on just before we splashed in, but I can't tell you any more
than that."
"Well, at least we have plenty of water," sighed Roger.
"You _had_ plenty of water. The tanks were smashed when we came in. Not
even a puddle left in a corner."
"Of course it might rain," said Roger.
Tom gave a short laugh. "The last time it rained in this place dinosaurs
were roaming around on Earth!"
"How about food?" asked Roger.
"Plenty of that," answered Astro. "This is a passenger ship, remember!
They have everything you could ask for, including smoked Venusian
fatfish!"
"Then let's get out of here and take a look," said Tom.
The three bruised but otherwise healthy cadets climbed slowly down to
the control deck and headed for the galley, where Tom found six plastic
containers of Martian water.
"Spaceman, this is the biggest hunk of luck we've had in the last two
hours," said Roger, taking one of the containers.
"Why two hours, Roger?" asked Astro, puzzled.
"Two hours ago we were still in space expecting to splash in," said Tom.
He opened one of the containers and offered it to Astro. "Take it easy,
Astro," said Tom. "Unless we find something else to drink, this might
have to last a long time."
"Yeah," said Roger, "a _long_ time. I've been thinking about our chances
of getting out of this mess."
"Well," asked Astro, "what has the great Manning brain figured out?"
"There's no chance at all," said Roger slowly. "You're wrong, Corbett,
about this being midday. It's early morning!" He pointed to a
chronometer on the bulkhead behind Astro. "It's still running. I made a
mental note before we splashed in, it was eight-O-seven. That clock
says nine-O-three. It doesn't begin to get hot here until three o'clock
in the afternoon."
"I think you're wrong two ways," said Tom. "In the first place, Captain
Strong probably has a unit out looking for us right now. And in the
second place, as long as we stay with the ship, we've got shade. That
sun is only bad because the atmosphere is thinner here on Mars, and
easier to burn through. But if we stay out of the sun, we're O.K. Just
sit back and wait for Strong!"
Roger shrugged his shoulders.
"Well," commented Astro with a grin, "I'm not going to sit around
waiting for Strong without eating!" He tore open a plastic package of
roast-beef sandwiches and began eating. Tom measured out three small
cups of Martian water.
"After we eat," suggested Roger, "I think we ought to take a look around
outside and try to set up an identification signal."
"That's a good idea," said Tom, "but don't you think the ship itself is
big enough for that?"
"Yeah," answered Roger, "I guess you're right."
"Boy!" said Astro. "We sure are lucky to still be able to argue."
"That's about all you can call it. Luck! Spaceman's luck!" said Tom.
"The only reason I can figure why we didn't wind up as permanent part of
the scenery around here is because of the course we were on."
"How do you figure that?" asked Astro.
"Luckily--and I _mean_ luckily, we were on a course that took us smack
onto the surface of Mars. And our speed was great enough to resist the
gravity pull of the planet, keeping us horizontal with the surface of
the desert. We skidded in like a kid does on a sled, instead of coming
in on our nose!"
"Well, blast my jets!" said Astro softly.
"In that case," said Roger, "we must have left a pretty long skid mark
in back of us!"
"That should be easy to see when the jet scouts come looking for us,"
commented Astro.
"I wonder if we could rig up some sort of emergency signal so we could
send out a relative position?"
"How are you going to get the position?" asked Astro.
"I can give you some sort of position as soon as I get outside and take
a sight on the sun," replied Roger.
"Can you do it without your astrogation prism?" asked Astro.
"Navigation, not astrogation, Astro," said Roger. "Like the ancient
sailors used on the oceans back on Earth hundreds of years ago. Only
thing is, I'll have to work up the logarithms by hand, instead of using
the computer. Might be a little rough, but it'll be close enough for
what we want."
The three cadets finished the remaining sandwiches and then picked their
way back through the ship to the control deck. There, they rummaged
through the pile of broken and shattered instruments.
"If we could find just one tube that hasn't been damaged, I think I
might be able to rig up some sort of one-lung communications set," said
Roger. "It might have enough range to get a message to the nearest
atmosphere booster station."
"Nothing but a pile of junk here, Roger," said Tom. "We might find
something on the radar deck."
The three members of the _Polaris_ unit climbed over the rubble and made
their way to the radar deck, and started their search for an undamaged
tube. After forty-five minutes of searching, Roger stood up in disgust.
"Nothing!" he said sourly.
"That kills any hope of getting a message out," said Tom.
"By the craters of Luna," said Astro, wiping his forehead. "I didn't
notice it before, but it's getting hotter here than on the power deck on
a trip to Mercury!"
"Do we have any flares?" asked Roger.
"Naw. Al James used them all," answered Tom.
"That does it," said Roger. "In another couple of hours, when and if
anyone shows up, all they'll find is three space cadets fried on the
half shell of a spaceship!"
"Listen, Roger," said Tom, "as soon as we fail to check in, the whole
Mars Solar Guard fleet will be out looking for us. Our last report will
show them we were heading in this direction. It won't take Captain
Strong long to figure out that we might have run out of fuel, and, with
that skid mark in the sand trailing back for twenty miles, all we have
to do is stick with the ship and wait for them to show up!"
"What's that?" asked Astro sharply.
From a distance, the three cadets could hear a low moaning and wailing.
They rushed to the crystal port and looked out on the endless miles of
brown sand, stretching as far as the horizon and meeting the cloudless
blue sky. Shimmering in the heat, the New Sahara desert of Mars was just
beginning to warm up for the day under the bleaching sun. The thin
atmosphere offered little protection against the blazing heat rays.
"Nothing but sand," said Tom. "Maybe something is still hot on the power
deck." He looked at Astro.
"I checked it before I came topside," said Astro. "I've heard that noise
before. It can only mean one thing."
"What's that?" asked Roger.
Astro turned quickly and walked to the opposite side of the littered
control deck. He pushed a pile of junk out of the way for a clear view
of the outside.
"There's your answer," said Astro, pointing at the port.
"By the rings of Saturn, look at that!" cried Tom.
"Yeah," said Roger, "black as the fingernails of a Titan miner!"
"That's a sandstorm," Astro said finally. "It blows as long as a week
and can pile up sand for two hundred feet. Sometimes the velocity
reaches as much as a hundred and sixty miles an hour. Once, in the
south, we got caught in one, and it was so bad we had to blast off. And
it took all the power we had to do it!"
The three cadets stood transfixed as they gazed through the crystal port
at the oncoming storm. The tremendous black cloud rolled toward the
spaceship in huge folds that billowed upward and back in
three-thousand-foot waves. The roar and wail of the wind grew louder,
rising in pitch until it was a shrill scream.
"We'd better get down to the power deck," said Tom, "and take some
oxygen bottles along with us, just in case. Astro, bring the rest of the
Martian water and you grab several of those containers of food, Roger.
We might be holed in for a long time."
"Why go down to the power deck?" asked Roger.
"There's a huge hole in the upper part of the ship's hull. That sand
will come in here by the ton and there's nothing to stop it," Tom
answered Roger, but kept his eyes on the churning black cloud. Already,
the first gusts of wind were lashing at the stricken _Lady Venus_.
[Illustration]