to look at the fuel, but I haven’t noticed any smell of it in the air, and that stuff’s strong. Here, you can see the damage.”
He pointed upward, along the “deck” of the gardens toward a gaping rent in the metal above them. One seam bad sprung open as if it were a ripe melon bursting. There was something over it, though.
“Some of our tent doth,” Steele explained. “I got it up on poles. Stuff holds back most of the air, though it doesn’t seal completely.”
Vance studied the situation. “Looks as if you’ve been busy, Dick. Well, we’ve got plates enough for a temporary patch—we can use thin stuff for that. But how’ll we get it up there?”
Take the sheets outside, and climb up the hull we can throw a rope over it and pull a couple of ladders up.” Vance nodded, and they turned into the supply room where the heavy sheets were stored. It would probably take about five of the thinner ones to cover the hole properly. Dick picked up two of them, and each of the others grabbed one, together with equipment that might be needed. They headed for the air lock as rapidly as they could.
The inner door came open easily enough—apparently it had withstood the shock. The outer one was more trouble. It refused to open until Dick and Vance combined their strength, using their legs across it and heaving up together. Then it groaned and folded inward slowly.
Underneath it lay reddish sand, packed down firmly into the shape it had taken from the door. Dick groaned.
Chuck reached for a sheet to shove the sand away, and then he realized what had happened. The air lock lay exactly at the bottom of the ship now—the Eros had fallen over on its side, putting its whole weight on the door.
“We’ll have to dig out—” he began. But Vance cut him off.
“We will—but not right now. We’ve probably sunk five feet deep in this soft stuff, and we’d have to dig a tunnel up and around. It isn’t like honest dirt—look how dry it is—and we’d have to build supports as we went, to keep it from drifting back. Sure, we’ll have to dig out—when we’ve got a couple free days to give to the job. How about the door to the gardens?”
Steele frowned. “All three doors are stuck. If we could shut the outer one only and seal it, we’d still lose most of our air. Anyway, it wouldn’t do any good to save ourselves and let the plants die in the stuff Mars calls atmosphere. We have to have them.”
They moved back to the gardens, leaving the equipment beside the useless air lock. Vance stopped to close the inner seal since the air would gradually seep out, even through the bone-dry sand.
The tent cloth covering looked thin and transparent over die sprung seam, but it was holding the pressure. It was designed to be used in the Martian deserts, and to keep an atmosphere during twenty-four hours. But it hadn’t pressed itself down smoothly—it couldn’t, against the uneven tear. And there was a current in the air that showed a continual loss.
Chuck tried to imagine how Dick had managed to get it up, light and manageable as it was. The poles he used had been normal aluminum pipes, hastily tied together to a length of some fifty feet. Probably the man couldn’t tell himself how he’d done it; it had been strictly an emergency reaction.
“Have we still got any power?” he asked the engineer. The big man nodded, and Chuck studied the cloth again. “And we have a good supply of paint that’s supposed to dry in five minutes. How about pumping it through the hoses and squirting it up?”
“Might work,” Vance agreed.
The hose and pump arrived quickly, and the others began dragging up five-gallon cans of paint. Some was trick plastic, and some had an acetone base. “What’s the tent cloth made of?” Chuck asked. “Will acetone soften it?”
“I don’t know—it may dissolve it completely. But we’ll have to try.”
They poured the acetone-base lacquer into the pump tank first, and tested the motor. It was working. Dick and Nat took the nozzle of the pump in their hands, aimed it, and nodded. Chuck opened the valve.
A thin stream leaped upward to wash against the metal overhead. The two men directed it carefully against the edge of the tent cloth, until a gray smear appeared. Then
Chuck closed the valve. They watched, holding their breaths.
At first, nothing happened. Then the cloth that had been wrinkled at the edges seemed to sag upward, tighter against the metal. It was working—
“Good idea Chuck. It’s working. Stuff dries before it hurts the cloth, and it still softens the cloth enough to let the pressure seal it. Go ahead.”
They were almost out of lacquer when they came to the last section of seam. But the cloth behind them was smooth against the metal and the draft was slowing down to a faint whisper of air movement.
They repeated the maneuver with the plastic paint, but it seemed to have no effect on the cloth. It obviously wasn’t a solvent for tent cloth. It didn’t matter. They were using it to dose the pores in the cloth completely, and it was effective for that. Little by little, they sprayed over it until the last bit of clear cloth was covered.
“Should hold for at least a week,” Dick approved. Then he glanced down at the plant tanks along the deck. “The paint isn’t helping them any.”
“They’ll grow back—or new ones will replace them. We’re lucky none of the food plants caught the spray.” Rothman’s voice was approving. “I feel a little better about the mess I got you fellows in now.”
Doc Sokolsky finally caught up with Steele long enough to begin dressing the cut. He nodded his agreement with Rothman, but showed little approval.
“Fine. If we have to live here the rest of our lives, I guess it’s better to have air. But I’m not sure. Did any of you notice that we’ve cracked one of the main girders that run down the ship?”
Pain that was almost physical showed in Steele’s eyes. “We couldn’t—those things carry the entire rocket thrust.”
“Sidewise?”
“No-o. No, I suppose they buckle better when they’re slapped down on their side. But we can weld and reinforce it somehow.”
They turned to Vance, looking for his opinion, as they followed Sokolsky back to where the big girder lay almost in two pieces. But the captain hardly looked at it He went on toward the control room to come back a moment later with the course chart in his hands.
Everyone was assembled by then. He addressed them all: “We can get off Mars all right. It may take time, but apparently we’ve got enough supplies—we’ll check later—and I haven’t seen any damage that can’t be fixed; there may be some we don’t know of, but let’s say there isn’t. The real question is, how soon can it all be fixed?”
Steele looked at the others, trying to figure the damage. “Five, six months. Captain.”
“Exactly.” Vance held out the course toward them. “And we used extra fuel in landing. Once Mars and Earth get out of step, we keep losing ground—we’ll need more fuel to return for every month we stay. Either we get off here within ninety days—or we’ll have to wait a few years until the two planets decide to get into a favorable position again!”
He passed the course chart to them. “It’s up to you. You’d better work a miracle, because nobody ever needed one more.”
CHAPTER 9
A New World
There would be no thrill to setting foot on the soil of another planet for the first time. Chuck realized, as he carried the small shovel toward the air lock. The sand in the lock was soil, all right—but this wasn’t the classical picture of an explorer claiming new ground.
Lew called after him, and came bringing another shovel. Both boys were solidly muscular, yet not too large
