he grinned at Chuck, and made light of the sleep he’d be losing. He seemed capable of almost any degree of endurance, though Chuck would have guessed that he would be the first man on the expedition to fold up.
It wasn’t a cheerful supper. Somehow, the tanks had been unloaded onto the sand— both fuel tanks and unused hydroponic tanks. It represented a grim day’s work, and one that promised even worse efforts when they had to be put back.
Sokolsky and Ginger slipped out. This time, the bait was one that had proven itself before—everything except the welding torch that had attracted the Martian beasts was spread out in a convenient circle. Ginger and Sokolsky were dug into the sand, beneath the ship, where they could see without being seen.
Nothing came of it. There were no visitors. Sokolsky caught Chuck on the way to bed for a few hours before another day and night’s duties. “Eyes all over, Chuck—but nobody was taking the bait They Just sat there, about five hundred feet away.”
Chuck nodded and went on down to the tanks, where he would try to find some way of doubling up on the plants to use the smallest number of hydroponic tanks while they were arranging to tilt the ship. He threw out some of the weedy growth that was used only to replenish the air, but could do little else.
With that as finished as it could be, they began digging— the worst work from Chuck’s point of view. He tried to envision the big circle they must dig to a depth of better than ten feet as only a group of smaller chunks to bitten from the soil, but it didn’t work. It came out as a group of larger backaches.
The worst part of it all was the general feeling of hopelessness. They were already behind schedule and falling farther behind with each day. Vance couldn’t give up, but the others were beginning to do so.
He looked out before turning in to see that the bait was again waiting, with the two men on guard as before, but this time even more carefully hidden. They’d worked it out so that Sokolsky would use the gun, while Ginger would keep his radio on general call, ready to yell at the first sight of the beasts.
It was barely time to retire, though, and Chuck was restless. He snapped down his helmet and went through the air lock, intending to spell Sokolsky for a few hours and let the man get a decent night’s sleep.
Then he hesitated. For a moment, he stood in the lock, debating and half-listening for something. Finally, he turned back and climbed into his hammock, falling asleep at once.
Sokolsky and Ginger were not at breakfast as the men came in. Vance cursed, and looked out quickly through one of the windows in the control room. His fingers trembled as he pointed to the place where the “bait” had been left.
Most of it was still there. But the welding torch was gone.
When they got into their suits and outside, they found both Sokolsky and Ginger sleeping soundly, quite unaware of the loss.
Vance’s shout over the radio brought them out of it Ginger woke up groggily, but the doctor sat up promptly, smiling easily. Chuck noticed that a ray of sunlight bad been falling directly where his face had been—and remembered Sokolsky’s boast of always waking when the sunlight touched him.
Ginger went on yawning, until a startled look came over his face, while Vance hesitated. The doctor, quicker than the cook, swung toward the pile they had used for bait.
He nodded. “Okay, Miles, I’ve got it coming. I don’t have an excuse. You can enforce your military laws about sleeping when on guard duty.”
“It’s my own fault—I had no right keeping you up without sleep,” Vance answered, and his voice was more puzzled than angry. “Ginger, I’ll speak to you later. You’ve had sleep enough and more. Go in and finish breakfast for the men—and then get out there and dig. What happened, Doc?”
Sokolsky shook his head. “Nothing. I was sitting here when I saw Chuck come out. I figured he was going to come over, but he went back in. I’d been a bit groggy before, but that waked me up—or I thought it did. I remember seeing the lock close—and that’s all.”
“Maybe you noticed Ginger falling asleep, and it hit you—sympathetic reaction after all the sleep you’ve missed?”
The doctor shook his head unbelievingly. He was obviously completely baffled. Chuck could make no sense of it either. He could understand that the doctor might fall asleep, but the man wasn’t the type to keep on sleeping when on duty and with the sun shining fully on him. Something had drugged him—and yet a man couldn’t be drugged in an airtight suit…
“The blowers!” It seemed too obvious now. ‘They must be drugging the guard. We get used to thinking that a man in a suit is safe from anything—but we’re breathing outside air, compressed, now.”
Sokolsky looked sick at the obviousness of it. “I feel logy,” he admitted. “Not too bad, but not as sharp as I should feel after a full night’s sleep. Well, that’s the answer to it, then. Put oxygen tanks back on the guard’s suit, and we can go back to normal.”
He stood up, stretching. “What’s the schedule—more digging?”
Vance nodded, considering it. There was a mixture of doubt and hope on his face. “Yeah, we’re still digging. And we might as well get at it. All right. I’ll put Dick Steele on the job as guard tonight with oxygen bottles instead of the blowers. But I’m not going to risk another welder. They’ll have to take some other bait.”
The hole was growing, slowly. The fine sand drifted back almost as fast as they dug it out, and there couldn’t be enough shoring provided to do much good. Chuck grimaced at the stuff as he scooped it out. Beside him, Rothman was frowning heavily.
“I quit,” the pilot announced suddenly. At Vance’s’ look, he shook his head. “I mean it. Miles. I can’t see any sense in digging this out when one good blast from the number one tube would do more than we can do in five days!”
As usual, it was the obvious which had escaped them. Fifteen minutes later, they stood looking down into a hole that was better than the ten feet in depth Vance had needed. Its sides sloped, as the soft sand ran back into it. But Vance was happy for the first time since they had crashed down on the planet. He admitted that it put him back on schedule, or nearly so.
They took it easy the rest of the day, digging out directly under the tail, where the blast hadn’t reached. But by night, they were ready to begin the job of attaching the motor winches and pulling the big ship upright. To Chuck and Sokolsky, he also admitted that it made him a lot happier about wasting Steele’s work for a day in sleeping. The big man, knowing all of the story that could be pieced together to warn him, was already out in a new hiding place, watching the bait.
They turned in early, feeling almost pleased to be members of the Eros crew again. Even Ginger was forgiven—or made to understand that it was no longer his fault.
It was two o’clock in the morning when they were awakened by the speakers, shouting in Dick Steele’s big voice.
The man came storming in a minute later, throwing back his helmet. “I fell asleep—couldn’t have been more than ten minutes, but I came to with a sick feeling and saw something streaking away. They’ve cut through the tent-doth seal on the underside, and you’d better get down and fix it—you’re losing air again.”
It wasn’t quite true; they hadn’t cut through, but had carefully lifted the cloth from the seal around the edges and slipped in—against the air pressure, which must have taken considerable doing. Then they’d left the same way, resealing it somewhat. The loss of air wasn’t too bad.
But the loss of the third welding torch was a major catastrophe.
CHAPTER 14
Welcome Mat
Everyone knew all the details now, and nobody had an explanation. Drugs wouldn’t affect a man in a completely airtight suit, yet Dick had passed out while seemingly wide-awake, and fully aware of what was going on. To make matters worse, he was a hypnotic immune. Chuck had thought of the cricket-like chirping he had heard near the ruins, and had wondered whether it might not account for his sleeping then, and for his indecision at the air lock when Sokolsky was on guard.
But a certified hypnotic immune couldn’t be hypnotized—it was a rare thing, but it had been proved.
