Chapter V: Part 5

He found that he could work better by taking his feet off the hull and “hanging” face down over it, with Shep holding on to his safety line to prevent the blast of the torch from driving him outward. Johnny was busy holding the flux in position.

Suddenly the force of the blast caused Rock’s worn safety line to snap and sent him hurtling outward from the hull of the _Dog Star_!

Rock heard his own name blasting into his ears as the anguished voice of Shep called to him. Then he saw his friend leap upward with clutching futile hands. Shep’s body jerked to the end of his own line, and then the reaction sent him slamming back onto the hull.

As Rock, still numb with shock, sped farther outward, he heard the frantic calls of Shep and Johnny trail off as their radio power faded. Finally no sound reached his ears, and the oppressive silence of lonely space closed in on him. It had all happened with such suddenness that he could scarcely realize it had happened at all.

Hopelessness had already begun to get a hold on him before he began to think of how he might save himself. Perhaps it was something he had learned in cadet training that made him calm himself and think reasonably.

His stiff fingers still clutched the cutting torch that had rocketed him from the _Dog Star_. Why not use it the same way to get back? Although still streaking out laterally from the ship, he was under influence of the ship’s motion and was traveling just as fast beside it.

Rock carefully judged his direction and blasted with the tool in the opposite direction. He felt the deceleration of his outbound speed as the firestream braked him. Presently the rocket reaction stopped him and he began going back toward the ship.

Rock used the cutting torch for a brake to slow his return onto the skin of the hull. Shep and Johnny clattered over to him and pulled him in to safety. Rock could see relief spreading over their faces.

“Thank goodness you’re safe, Rock!” Shep said. “You nearly gave us heart failure! You sure kept your head!”

If he hadn’t, Rock told himself grimly, he would not be here this minute. A spaceman had to keep his head at all times. His cadet training had impressed that on him.

The days and weeks that followed passed uneventfully, if not exactly excitingly. There was so little to do, such a monotony of scene.

A few thousand miles from the Venus orbit, Rock fed directions for a gyroscope turn into the automatic pilot, and the rockets began spouting bursts of flame to check the _Dog Star_’s headlong rush. All aboard were forced to take to shock couches for the first time to lessen the pain on their bodies.

Had time not been a factor, Rock could have decelerated slowly with no strain. This had been the manner of their acceleration from the station. But Rock had realized that Kalmus would become impatient later and so had figured the flight for rapid deceleration and consequently much saving of time.

Kalmus and his men took the deceleration shock in different ways. Since all the couches were in the same room, Rock could study their reactions. Jack Judas and Kalmus made no outward signs of discomfort, but Spooner and Pegg groaned continually.

Although not exactly enjoying himself either, Rock, like his young friends, had been taught to take this, and through a certain pride would give no outcries. The lessening speed constricted the blood vessels in his eyes, blurring his vision, but Rock kept studying the reflecting prism over his cot to take his mind off the strain. And his hand did not drift far from the emergency controls should something go wrong.

The prism brought the outside view right into the ship. Venus dominated the scene, like a giant snowball glittering with a light of its own. Rock could see the impenetrable clouds, chiefly of carbon dioxide, swirling and crawling over the surface of the planet like a tide. The invisible lands below were a hothouse of wind-swept desert and barren stretches. There were only a few isolated research settlements down there where brave scientists probed the hot soil for strange new things.

When the _Dog Star_ slowed, the travelers were able to leave their couches.

Rock consulted the charts and got a reading of their position from Ed, who was at the navigation instruments.

“Here we are,” Rock said, indicating a spot on one of the maps. “At Point X we’ll match orbits with the _Northern Cross_, then we’ll accelerate a little so that we’re bound to overtake her eventually—that is, if she’s still in her original flight orbit.”

“She’s _got_ to be there!” Kalmus cried a little frantically. “I’ve poured a fortune into this thing.”

“I’ve got as much interest in this as you have, Tony,” Rock told him evenly. “We’re no expert Spacemen, but I’m pretty sure we’re going right so far.”

The travelers began watching the radarscope for first signs of the ghost ship. But no “blips” showed on the screen. Later, every crewman was assigned a watch at the ’scope. This was intended to keep a man continually on duty.

When the ship moved in exposure to the sun, the ports had to be shielded with filter screens. An outside movable reflector blind, highly polished and operated automatically by a thermostat, reflected away much of the heat and light.

Despite its dangerous aspects, the sun was a magnificent object. Its white-hot surface was eye-searing bright and showed dark islands of sunspot activity, any one of which could swallow Earth. Its edges threw out mountainous red tides that lapped outward many thousands of miles into the black deeps. It was a sight that brought a lump of awe into one’s throat.

When he was on duty at the ’scope, Rock used the ship’s small refracting telescope to see the little yellow disc of Mercury, dwarfed like a pinhead beside a grapefruit, against the sun. It reminded Rock of a small dog taunting a larger one, daring it to attack, yet forever skipping nimbly out of the way with its agile speed.

The hours of search drew into a full space day, then another, with no sign of the ghost ship. Even if the _Dog Star_ had been off course a few hundred miles, a ship as large as the _Northern Cross_ could not have slipped by unnoticed.

Finally Rock had to make a gloomy announcement. “In another hour we’ll have made a complete revolution of Venus,” he told all ten of them who were gathered around. “If we don’t come across the _Northern Cross_ by then, it means she’s not in her orbit. She’s either crashed on Venus or has gone out into space. We’ve been accelerating faster than an object in free fall around Venus. She couldn’t have outrun us.”

Kalmus’ big palm slapped the table. “I won’t stand for being licked, Rock! I’ve built my hopes so high on this thing!” His pale eyes glared restlessly and there was a red suffusion over his face.

Rock reminded him, “The matter isn’t in our hands. We’ve done all we can do.”

Kalmus lapsed into nervous silence as the minutes ticked off. He haunted the radarscope most of the time and even tried to look for the ship with the refractor, a tedious job. He was in a constant fidget, alternately pacing and putting his eye to the instrument.

Now only fifteen minutes remained. There was still no sign of the ghost ship. Rock also was beginning to feel a growing despondency. Up until now he had not considered the consequences of failure. Now it shocked him to do so. He and his friends would be indebted to Kalmus for years to come for their share in the venture. They would either have to slave at the space station again, and eat humble crow, or try to find other jobs back on Earth.

But this wasn’t all of the story. A failure would close off for all time the hope that had lived in him ever since he had known of his father’s disappearance. He would have to resign himself to the thought that his father and his ship would speed along with its lifeless cargo to the ends of the universe seemingly, never to be recovered. And worse, Merrill Memorial Hospital would remain only a shattered dream that might have been.

Then there was the reaction of the unpredictable Kalmus to be considered. Would he turn on them?

Five minutes to go. No ship in sight. Nothing but star dust and more star dust and the smoldering light of Sol, like a mocking beacon.

Finally Rock had to say bitterly, “Time’s up. I’m afraid we’re licked. There’s no sign of the _Northern Cross_.”

“We’ve got to find that ship!” Kalmus cried. “I’ll search for it if it takes a hundred years!”

“It won’t do any good to search without knowing where to look,” Rock reminded him.

“It won’t hurt to try anyhow,” Kalmus proposed. “We might be lucky. I’ve sunk too much in this expedition to turn back now!”

“We still intend to pay up our share of the costs, Tony,” Rock assured him. “You needn’t worry about that part of it.”

“Finding the ship means as much to you as it does to me—or so you said, Rock,” Kalmus went on stubbornly. “Why are you giving up so easily?”

“Of course it means a lot to me, but I’m not going against terrific odds. It would be crazy.” Suddenly Rock thought of something and turned to Sparky Finn. “Sparky, are you absolutely certain you figured out that navigational problem correctly? Yours was the trickiest of all.”

“I went over it twice, Rock,” Sparky replied solemnly.

“Better look at it again,” Rock proposed. “There’s a possibility we might have botched up our figures somehow. If your calculation is right, we’ll all recheck ours.”

Sparky’s math proved to be correct. Then each of the boys went over his own figures again. Halfway through his, Hugh caught an error in his work.

“Take me for a numbskull!” he burst out. “Look what I did! No wonder I flunked out in cadet school!”

“We are too far out from Venus,” Rock told Kalmus. “We’ve got to go in closer to the planet.”

The _Dog Star_ swung into its new orbit. Kalmus became enthusiastic again, and Rock felt that they would meet with success this time, but if they didn’t, there was nothing more to do but admit defeat.

It was Johnny Colfax who first spotted an interesting “blip” on the radarscope screen two space days later. Half the eleven-man crew was asleep, but Johnny’s shouts brought everyone running into the main control room.

“Look, Rock, I think I’ve found it!”

Rock set the telescope in synchronization with the radar set. Then he put his eye to the telescope eyepiece and turned the hairline focus adjustment. Yes, it was really a cigar-shaped craft, man-made, just about the general shape the _Northern Cross_ was supposed to be. It was a streamlined ship built to slide through the atmosphere of Venus.

Rock judged it to be a few hundred miles away. “It seems to be the _Northern Cross_,” he announced.

“Let me see that thing!” Kalmus blurted and pushed up to the telescope. “There’s our dream ship!” he purred, like a miser over his gold sacks. “I can almost see a dollar sign on that baby!”

A few gentle manual corrections later brought the _Dog Star_ alongside the ghost ship. The smaller ship’s crew clustered at the broad port. Only a few thousand yards away, the ship was a giant thing, gray and meteor-scarred from the years that it had wheeled about in space, alternately feeling the torrid heat of the naked sun and the bitter cold when the sun was eclipsed behind the big planet.

As Rock stared, his heart beat faster. Here was the graveyard of his valiant father and his crew who had battled nature for a share of her wealth and had lost. Rock felt a mixture of feelings—of repulsion and of being drawn to the scene. He was attracted by thoughts of the treasure ore that might fulfill his father’s dream of a satellite hospital, but he was repelled by thoughts of what he might find in that space tomb.

Although circling the planet Venus at high velocity, both ships were as if stationary in space and in relation to each other. Rock, Shep, Hugh, Kalmus, and Judas suited up in preparation to going outside and across to the other ship.

With an extended safety line securing himself to the exit door of the _Dog Star_, Rock was the first to launch himself into the gulf between the ships. He carried a length of electrical cable which he would attach by magnetic force to the side of the _Northern Cross_. Then his companions could hook onto the cable with their own safety lines and cross the gulf without risk of drifting off. They had done some repair work on the unsafe lines that had given them trouble before. They felt more secure with them now.

After the cable was set up, Shep pushed off from the doorstep of the _Dog Star_, and his momentum carried him through the vacuum toward Rock on the other side, his safety line slipping along the cable for security. Behind Shep, the others followed.

Shep had brought two cutting torches for opening the door seams of the _Northern Cross_. He handed one to Rock and they both set to work, the brilliant flare of their tools lighting the blackness like twin novae. The sun was on the other side of the space ship, leaving this shadow side in absolute darkness.

Finally the door was cut all around. All that it appeared to need now was a good strong push. Rock and Shep tried it together, a little gingerly perhaps as they realized their weightlessness, and hence, helplessness. The door hung stubbornly in place. When Kalmus saw their ineffective efforts, he lifted his big booted feet and boldly slammed them hard against the door. The door section caved inward, but the reaction sent Kalmus scooting backward.

Kalmus gave a terrified yell as he went drifting all the way back to the other ship. Not knowing how to navigate in weightlessness, he barged into the wall of the _Dog Star_ with such force that it caused him to bounce back across the gulf again. His safety line kept him from being in any danger of caroming off into space.

Hugh, holding on to the ship, caught Kalmus’ body as it came back to them. The big fellow was moaning from fright, and the boys got secret enjoyment out of Kalmus’ comical and harmless experience.

Then Rock sobered quickly as he faced the grim task that was to follow. He sighed heavily and stepped through the opening into the air-lock tunnel of the ghost ship, followed by the others. His shoes clung to the floor, indicating that the magnetic floor current was still going after twenty years. Leaving the air lock, Rock and his companions found themselves in a lounge. Everything was in neat order, just as if it had been set to rights only today.

“It’s in excellent preservation!” Rock marveled. “The reflector blinds must have kept the temperature in here pretty even through all the years.”

They found other parts of the ship also in neat order. Rock had been told by his mother that his father had been a very orderly man. As yet there was no sign of what had made the vessel a ghost ship.

Rock dreaded every new room they entered. Which one would reveal to him the skeletons of the ghost crew—one of them his father’s, a father he had never seen?

The searchers carried Geiger counters as a check on stray radioactivity from the atomic engines. But so far the only clicks the meters gave off were apparently from the ever-present cosmic rays out in space.

Since no bodies had yet been found, it was supposed that the four crewmen were together in one place. The searchers had entered the _Northern Cross_ near the rear and had been working their way forward. Rock guessed that the bodies must be in the main control room.

In the galley, remains of a meal were still inside sealed plates. The bits were rock hard. An examination of wall pressure gauges showed that the entire ship was open to the vacuum of space.

“Where is the ore?” Kalmus growled. “I don’t like the looks of this!”

The search party moved down ghostly corridors that hadn’t felt the thump of space boots for two decades. Just before reaching the main control room, Rock came to a door-marked, “Stores.”

“This may be it!” he said hopefully and opened the door.

No one needed to tell anyone else that this was the goal they had been looking for. It was a vast, oblong cell, its metal bins piled nearly to the ceiling with gray lumps of rock. The rest of the room was crowded with mining equipment. However, the bigger stuff had evidently been left on Venus.

Kalmus gave a shout and flung himself into one of the bins. He fondled the stones, bathing himself in the wealth. “I’m rich! I’m rich!” he kept saying.

Rock turned away disgustedly, his young friends following. For some reason he almost wished their mission had been a failure. Sharing this treasure that his father had died to accumulate for unselfish motives made Rock feel sick for a moment.

“Want to go into the pilot’s room, Rock,” Shep asked in gentle consideration, “or shall we just pass it up?”

“No, Shep, I’ve got to see if Dad is in there,” Rock answered.

Leaving Kalmus and Judas to play in their wealth, the three youths left the room and moved farther down the corridor to the main control room, the door to which bulged outward. It took considerable ramming to force it open.

The disorder of the compartment was in shocking contrast to the neatness of the rest of the _Northern Cross_. Plastic seats were warped, and it looked as if a giant with a padded sledge hammer had gone about recklessly putting dents in the lightweight metal of the walls. An emergency air lock stood wide open, revealing the stars, its door hanging by one hinge. It was on the side away from the _Dog Star_. The huge console that housed the instruments and gauges also showed great depressions, and nearly all the glass dial covers were shattered.

“What do you think happened in here, Rock?” Shep asked.

“It looks like a high-pressure build-up of gas,” Rock answered. “Probably in the ventilating system. When the pressure got too high, either the air lock was the first to give way or somebody opened it in desperation. I imagine all the men were trapped in here and couldn’t get the door open.”

There were no bodies in the room. All four had evidently been swept through the air lock by the rapidly escaping gas. Rock’s companions could read the truth as easily as he had done himself, and they were considerate enough to remain silent. Rock stared about him for several moments. This was so unexpected, not finding his father. He didn’t quite know how to take it.

The boys went out to join the others. Kalmus and Judas were chattering over their success, already making plans for the future.

Kalmus was not concerned whether Rock had found his father or not. “Let’s hurry up and get this stuff loaded on the _Dog Star_,” was the first thing he said.

“Sure,” Rock said absently.

As they went aft again, Rock’s mind was full of what they had seen. He was rather disappointed in the way he felt. He had thought he would be jumping in elation when they found the alconite ore. Instead, he was almost sorry. It seemed like a violation of his father’s honor to share his property with these men of greed.

The shock of not finding his father’s body continued to disturb him. He had hoped to take it back and give it a decent burial. Yet, as he thought further, perhaps this was the way his dad would have wanted it, because he was first and last a spaceman. Also, his widow would not have to relive the pain of his loss again. Yes, it probably was best this way.

The five of them crossed over on the cable again and made preparations for transferring the ore to the _Dog Star_. They would carry it over in regular space transfer crates secured to the cable. An empty crate would be shoved across the gulf, filled up in the _Northern Cross_, and then sent back over to be emptied of its contents.

The crew was split into two parties, five remaining aboard the _Dog Star_ to unload and the other six going over to the _Northern Cross_ to load the treasure aboard the crates.

The work began and moved along smoothly, but it was going to be a drawn-out operation, if not a rigorous one. Carrying the containers of ore down the corridors of the _Northern Cross_ was a simple matter since they were perfectly weightless and so had only to be guided along by the touch of a hand.

The hours dragged along slowly as load after load was drifted down the corridors of the ghost ship and pushed across the vacuum to the _Dog Star_. The storage bins of the smaller ship bulged higher and higher with the valuable mineral.

As the transference neared completion, Rock took Shep aside, near one of the ports of the _Northern Cross_. Then he began speaking very softly so that none of Kalmus’ men working in the ship could pick up the conversation by helmet radio.

“We’re nearly through, Shep,” he whispered, “and you know what that means for Kalmus.”

“It means he’s got what he came for and that he should be satisfied,” Shep finished.

“To me it’s more than that,” Rock continued. “It means that he doesn’t need any ex-cadets anymore. You heard him say that Judas could run the ship.”

Rock could barely see the frown on Shep’s face through the filtered facepiece of his helmet. “What are you getting at, Rock?”

“The fewer men who return to port with the treasure ore, the fewer there will be to share the profits,” Rock said, his radio-altered voice carrying a sinister inflection.

“You mean you think that Kalmus is going to ditch us?” Shep asked in a fierce whisper. “Right out here in the middle of space?”

“I’m not saying I believe that definitely,” Rock corrected, “but I do think we should start being on our guard for any funny moves Kalmus might make. You’ve seen yourself how greedy he is.”

“What, exactly, do you think we should do?” Shep asked.

“I think that you, Johnny, Hugh, and myself should go on over to the _Dog Star_ right now and tell Kalmus that we believe the ship has got as much ore as she should carry. That will prevent his stranding us over here. If he wants to, let him come over and get the rest of the ore himself.”

“Since we’re making wild guesses,” Shep said, “maybe Kalmus has other plans for dealing with us, such as making us prisoners on the _Dog Star_ as we head back.”

“That’s possible too,” Rock agreed, “but he would need weapons for that, since we outnumber them. I took a quick look through their things before we left port to make sure he and his men had no weapons, and I don’t think they brought any along.”

“Maybe we’re being unfair with the guy, suspecting him at all,” Shep said.

As the words left his lips, he happened to glance out the port and saw Ben Spooner, who had been working on the _Northern Cross_, thrust out across the gulf empty-handed.

“Hey, look!” Shep cried. “Ben’s in a big hurry and he’s not carrying a crate across!” He seized Rock’s space suit. “Now there goes Judas right behind him and he’s empty-handed too!”

Rock felt his heart take a dive. “Shep, they must be going to do exactly what I feared!” He sprang into action. “Come on, we’ve got to get Hugh and Johnny!”

“They can’t maroon us in space!” Shep said, furious, as he tagged along behind Rock down the corridor. “It’s the same as murder!”

“They’re not even waiting to carry the rest of the ore across!” Rock said. “As soon as we find the fellows, we’ll get over to the _Dog Star_ right away!”

Sparky, Ed, and Leo were already in the other ship. Rock and Shep quickly rounded up Johnny and Hugh and the four of them hustled toward the air lock, bumping into crates in their hurry. As they reached it, Johnny pointed out the open doorway.

“Look, Sparky’s coming over!” he said.

“Maybe he’s found out what’s going on,” Hugh spoke.

They gave Sparky a hand into the ship.

“What’s up, Sparky?” Rock asked.

“Jack Judas told me you wanted help in finishing up over here and for me to come over,” Sparky replied.

“We didn’t send for you,” Rock told Sparky. “It must be a trick to get the most of us over here. Come on, you guys! We’ll go over and have a show-down with Kalmus right away!”

But before they could launch themselves, Kalmus had already begun his act of treachery.

“Look what those crooks are doing!” Shep exclaimed.

The boys could hardly believe what they saw. It was more like a bad dream. The cable had jerked away from the side of the _Northern Cross_ as its magnetic attraction was broken. Then the five saw Kalmus lean out and pull it into the _Dog Star_.

“We’re too late!” Rock groaned.

The ex-cadets shouted in frustration and anger at the cold-blooded act. Over their suit radios, they warned their former partners of the consequences of abandoning men in space. But even as they yelled themselves hoarse, Rock knew it wasn’t going to do any good. Kalmus had simply gotten the jump on them, something that had probably been planned at the very beginning of the voyage.

The outer door of the _Dog Star_ closed. A feeling of utter desperation took possession of Rock. Here they were, five of them, marooned on a ghost ship in space, without any foreseeable chance of returning alive to Earth.

An hour had passed since the five ex-cadets had been cut off from the mother ship. The _Dog Star_ had blasted off and was now out of sight. Rock guessed that Kalmus and his rebel crew had compelled Leo and Ed to assist Jack Judas in running the ship.

During this time, the castaways had been taking stock of their situation. Any hopes of sending an SOS were virtually gone. The radio antenna had been badly damaged at its base when loosened by the bulging wall. The radio’s present range could not be over a few thousand miles.

However, things did not look nearly so dark now as they had earlier. The boys found air tanks that would sustain them for quite a while, if not indefinitely. Upon refilling their suits with the aged gas, they found it breathable but carrying a metallic odor.

There was a fair abundance of irradiated food such as all space craft carried. By receiving special treatment in an electronic oven, such food could be preserved for years. Although hard and rather tasteless, the present supply would at least keep them alive. The water-making machine was still in good order, and a drink from it was as fresh as if just drawn from a spring.

However satisfactory these three main essentials were, though, they would all run out some day. That meant that the _Northern Cross_ would have to move out of her stagnant orbit if there was any chance for survival.

Rock was hopefully expectant that the ship would run again. Save for temperature changes, there had been no weather erosion to damage the craft and its fittings. Since the ship’s electrical power came from sunlight and the big solar mirror had continued to gather light over all these years, the electric system worked, and the batteries were still charged. A long-range inspection of the atomic-engine unit showed no radiation leakage. The unit had been shut down ever since the accident to the _Northern Cross_; the boys found the hafnium safety rods plunged well home into the atomic pile to prevent chain reaction. The automatic oil and grease feeds in the ship’s motors had given out by now, and many bearings were squeaky dry, so they replenished these.

The boys were now in the pilot’s room ready to try out the ship under its own power. The console had pretty well resisted the crush of air pressure that had caused the explosion, for the gauges were working. But of course working gauges did not necessarily mean working jets. The boys had made minor repairs in the main control room. They had reconciled themselves to living inside space suits for the rest of the way home since the _Northern Cross_ was open to the vacuum of space, and the air lock was too badly damaged to close again.

When everything was in readiness for a test blast, Rock sat at the console with the others crowding around him to keep their eyes on the many dials. The electronic brain and autopilot were in satisfactory order and would be called upon later if the ship were able to move under its own thrust.

Rock pressed colored buttons and shoved knife switches and floor levers.

“Jet chamber pressures are up!” Johnny said happily.

“The fuel flow gauge is right!” Sparky called.

“The coolant is circulating!” Hugh reported.

The boys felt a vibration and heard a muted hum. Then they felt a slight tug. They had already been traveling at substantial speed under orbital velocity, but the slight increase was unmistakable. A check of the dynamometer, that recorded thrust, indicated that the jets were operating properly. Rock cut off so that they could make plans.

“We could reduce speed and try for landing on Venus,” Rock proposed, looking out the port at the big planet that was buried within its dense veil, “but we’d have to be awfully lucky to land within radio range of any of the research settlements. Besides our radio being weak, there’s a lot of static on Venus from sunspots.”

“I’m in favor of trying to get back home,” Shep declared. “Even if we get off course we may be close enough to radio Luna or some of the space stations for help.”

“As a matter of fact, Luna will be right in our path on the way back,” Rock said.

Shep’s suggestion seemed to be the best idea and was voted for unanimously. After all had helped in figuring out the mathematics of their course, Rock fed the tape into the autopilot. Next everyone took to shock couches.

The _Northern Cross_ was in the fortunate position of being headed Earthward, meaning that its orbital speed could be added to their required velocity. In a manner of speaking, it was as if Venus were a slingshot hurling the pebble of the _Northern Cross_ into space.

Under the crushing pressure of their mounting acceleration, Rock watched the rising space speed in his overhead prism with concern. Would the engines of the ship, inactive for so long, respond at maximum efficiency? If they did, would the old vessel hold together under the strain?

The jets responded, at any rate. Rock’s body seemed to be squeezed flat, his eyeballs pressed deeply into their sockets, his vision blurred.

Then the ship began leveling off, and the pressure lifted from Rock’s body. Before long it was gone entirely, and he knew they could unstrap. The first thing the boys did when they were up was to check the dials on the console. Everything appeared to be satisfactory enough; the _Northern Cross_ should be able to carry them all the way. The radio was set on automatic SOS. Although extremely remote, there was the distant possibility that some ship might be within range.

Later the same day, when Rock had a moment of relaxation, he located his father’s private cabin. Being among his father’s things was almost like being in his presence and seeing him for the first time. There were the few neat clothes still hanging in the closet and the polished black boots in an orderly row.

On a wall desk he saw a picture of his mother and a fountain pen lying with the cap off. On the floor he found a sheet of radiogram paper on which his father had evidently been writing before the disaster.

Rock read the letter that his father had intended to radio to his wife on Earth. The boy’s eyes grew misty and there was a thickening in his throat.

The twenty-year-old message carried a tone of foreboding. It was as though Dr. Merrill felt that the four remaining less-experienced men of his original crew of nineteen could not successfully bring the ship back to port. “So close to my dream of a satellite hospital and yet so far,” were his unhappy words. “And yet we shall try with all our might, my dear, to come home. This treasure of ours _must_ not go to waste. There is so much good that it can do.”

The letter ended abruptly as Dr. Merrill wrote, “Fox has just called me forward. I think they may be having trouble. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.”

But of course neither Dr. Merrill nor anyone else ever told what had happened.

Rock tenderly folded the brittle paper and tucked it away safely. His mother would cherish this last word from her husband.

Rock knew now why his mother had scrimped and saved, working at the algae canning plant, to make him eligible for cadet school. But he didn’t know how hurt she must have been when he washed out. She hadn’t told him that.

The days dragged by slowly. With only a backdrop of star smudges to look at and unpalatable meals of hard, ancient food to eat, it was not exactly an enjoyable trip. Added to this of course were the youths’ additional worries about the welfare of their two buddies and whether the _Northern Cross_ would hold together until the beloved sphere of Earth swam into view.

When the ship moved into the environs of Luna, the weary five knew that Earth could not be far off. Ninety-nine per cent of their journey was already over.

Rock studied the enlarging globe of Earth’s satellite. Its wrinkled, gray face shone dazzlingly bright under the full glare of the sun. The filtering glass was lowered over the forward port to cut down the brilliance.

It was on the space day following that there occurred an incident that filled the boys with exuberant hope. They were almost at their closest approach to Luna. The gray desolate lands were right “below.”

A crackling was heard over the automatically set radio.

“Somebody must have picked up our signal and is trying to make contact!” Shep cried out.

Rock moved to the console to begin cutting speed. Then all gathered around the radio.

Hugh was the radio expert. He scooped up the mike and slid into the chair in front of the bank of knobs.

“_SS Northern Cross_,” he said eagerly. “_SS Northern Cross._ Come in, whoever you are! Please come in!”

The crackling continued. Then there was a fragment of voice that was quickly lost in a babble of sound.

Hugh kept talking into the mike.

“It’s that faulty antenna!” Rock groaned.

The crackling continued. Just as Hugh was about to give up, a voice came in weakly again. It was a voice the boys had to strain to hear, but they caught the vital message: “Hugh—Rock!” it said. “We picked up your SOS. We’ve had to make an emergency landing on Luna.”

“Leo!” Shep said. “It’s Leo!”

“Ask him quickly if Ed is all right and what their position is,” Rock said to Hugh.

“Yeah, we’re both all right,” came Leo’s reply. “Our position—”

A rattle of static cut him off. The boys groaned. It would be impossible to search the moon for a space ship. They had to get the exact location from Leo.

They listened hopefully. Hugh kept talking, saying that they weren’t getting clear reception.

Then Leo’s distorted voice came through again briefly. This time he got out the latitude and longitude of the _Dog Star_. Rock eagerly wrote it down.

“Here comes Kalmus!” they heard Leo say next in a frenzied voice.

That was the last they heard. There followed a garbled sound and then complete silence.

“Kalmus must have destroyed the set,” Rock said gravely.

“We know where to find them now, though,” Shep said with satisfaction.

Rock went to the chart files and dug through the celestial maps for one of Luna. He checked the position as given them by Leo.

“The place is near Archimedes in Mare Nubium,” Rock pointed out. “Get out your pencils and take a seat at the calculators, boys; we’ve got some navigation figuring to do!”

The velocity and orbital figures were worked out. Then the directions were computed in the mechanical brain and fed into the autopilot. The chemical braking rockets were switched in after the ship had turned about-face. No terrestrial landing was ever made with atomic rockets because of radioactive contamination of the ground.

The boys strapped down and braced for the agony of deceleration. It was a cumbersome job, clad as they were in space gear.

As the ship decelerated, Rock focused his hurting eyes on the prism overhead. The filter cut out the over-all glare of reflected sunlight from Luna’s boiling-hot surface, but the harsh blacks of dead shadow and the whites of naked sunlight were still painfully vivid. He watched the shimmering heat vapors, the miles and miles of gray pumice, heaped in waves in some places so that it resembled a gigantic sea whose motion has been suddenly stilled. Finally the great curving mouth of Archimedes began to enlarge and grow in prominence. The crater’s high, rugged walls filled the square of Rock’s prism.

Later he felt that easy, reassuring bump of the tripod fins that told him they had landed safely.

“Everybody O.K.?” Rock asked, looking around.

Johnny was pale and the others were a little groggy (they’d had to hit a deceleration of 7 G’s in order to stop the ship in time), but all attested to being alive, if shaky. Rock went over to the port to study their surroundings.

“We didn’t get off course very much,” he announced. “I can make out the _Dog Star_ about a quarter of a mile away.”

In their elevated position, the boys had an extensive view of the landscape. For miles around, the ground was dead black. Only in the distance did the razor-sharp line of sunlight begin. The _Northern Cross_ was in the broad shadow of Archimedes and the distant _Dog Star_ was also. Between the ships lay irregular rock shapes and uneven ground. A rift sliced across the area, appearing to make contact between the ships impossible.

“I wonder if Kalmus knows we’ve landed?” Shep said.

“Even if they don’t know we’re here,” Johnny put in, “they are protected by that big ditch. Not to mention being safely inside the ship.”

“I’ll admit we’ve got our job cut out for us,” Rock said, “but I don’t think we should try going back to Earth for help and count on the _Dog Star_ remaining here to be captured. We might never see Ed and Leo again.”

“Rock is right,” Hugh said. “We’ll have to figure out how to get over to the _Dog Star_ and free the boys from those crooks as soon as possible.”

Rock got out the pair of binoculars he had found among the things belonging to the ill-fated crewmen before them. Then he looked through them at the distant globe of the _Dog Star_. The ship had barely missed a high wall of dark-colored lunabase rock. The wall was jagged and spongy, like most formations on Luna, which had so little atmospheric erosion to wear them down. As he examined the wall, a sudden idea came to him.

“Why don’t a couple of us try to get over to that rock wall next to the _Dog Star_?” he proposed. “We can climb it and look through some of the ports. That way we may be able to see what the others are up to and make our plans accordingly.”

“Why just two?” Sparky wanted to know.

“Less chance of being seen by Kalmus,” Rock answered. “Also, if the two get caught, that still leaves three to think of something to do.”

“We haven’t yet figured how to cross that big ditch,” Hugh pointed out.

“I’ve thought of that too,” Rock said. “We can carry along a bunk ladder out of one of the dorms. From here it looks as if the ladder will span the ditch.”

“It sounds risky,” Johnny remarked.

“We’ve got to do something,” Shep countered. “I agree with Rock. How about you and me trying it, Rock?”

The matter was settled. But before anyone could go outside, the area had to be given time to clear of residual radioactivity around the atomic rocket nozzles. After waiting an hour, Rock and Shep got the ladder and carried it downstairs several flights to the air lock.

The ladder was tossed through the air lock to the ground. It floated feather-light. The former cadets descended by way of the ship’s ladder. They carried a Geiger counter for checking contamination. Besides the portable ladder, they had with them binoculars, a safety rope, and a walkie-talkie radio for communicating with the _Northern Cross_.

The area was free of contamination. The boys found walking quite awkward at first and laughed at their own clumsy efforts as they fairly danced along through the volcanic and meteoric dust. There was quite a difference between being absolutely weightless in magnetic-soled shoes and being of one-sixth Earth weight without such shoes. They finally got the hang of it and found they could take gliding steps of about five feet at a time.

They kept behind rocks and ground rises to minimize the chance of their being seen. They still could not be certain Kalmus had not seen the _Northern Cross_ come down.

The rocks and ground were covered with a down of hoarfrost. This was due to Luna’s scant moisture content condensing in the exceedingly rare atmosphere which was made up principally of carbon dioxide. As they moved along, Rock saw that Shep was beginning to grow a whitish fuzz of dry ice on his suit.

It was hard for Rock to realize that the temperature around them was several hundred degrees below zero, while only a scant mile or two farther out it was hotter than boiling water under the full rays of the sun. This was only one of Luna’s many strange features that fascinated him. He wished this had been a trip of exploration and fun instead of the grim battle that it was.

As they approached the great rift in the ground, Rock began to get a queasy feeling.

“Wide, isn’t it?” he asked Shep over his suit radio.

“And deep,” Shep replied, after a look over the brink that had showed no bottom.

They brought the ladder over to the edge and carefully spanned the gulf with it.

“It just does make it!” Rock gasped. “There’s only about a foot to spare on each end.”

They found a wedge of rock like a dinosaur’s tooth deeply embedded in the ground not far from the crack. Around this they tied one end of their safety rope. Then Rock tied the other end around his waist.

“Hold on to the ladder to make sure it doesn’t slip,” Rock told his friend, and slowly he started out over the plunging abyss.

Rock looked down through the rungs at the black emptiness below. Although he wore the safety line, a fall could be dangerous. He looked ahead as he kept moving forward. The other end of the ladder was wobbling back and forth. When he reached the opposite side of the brink and climbed onto firm ground, he was aware only of the perspiration trickling down his face. It made him turn down his suit heat a couple of degrees.

He untied the safety line and threw it back to Shep. Then his friend started over the perilous bridge, with Rock holding his side of the ladder as firm as he was able. Shep made it safely too, so they were both vastly relieved.

“We’ll just leave the ladder in place,” Rock suggested, then added gravely, “That’s in case we have to cross it in a hurry.”

Without the ladder to hamper them they could be more furtive in their movements. They dodged lithely around towering chunks of light-colored lunarite and darker lunabase. The rock formations looked like petrified sponges jutting up out of a dried-up sea bottom. When the two had to go out in the open, they sprinted toward the next place of cover. Since hoarfrost continued to gather on their suits, they constantly brushed it off. A moving white figure even in the deep shadows might be noticed by anyone in the _Dog Star_.

Now only a few hundred feet separated Rock and Shep from the space ship. They began swinging inward nearer the _glacis_ or outer slope of the crater, heading toward the wall of lunabase.

“If they’ve seen us, they haven’t given any sign,” Rock said with some measure of satisfaction when they had reached the foot of the wall and were watching the dumbbell shape of the _Dog Star_ just a short distance away. Standing on its tripod base, it looked like a huge kettle.

Rock and Shep started up the rugged slope. Although precipitous and craggy, it did not look to be too difficult to climb since there were natural footholds at almost every step. Nevertheless a slip would be perilous, if not fatal. The boys had been well drilled in the dire effects of having one’s space suit ripped open. In such case the suit collapsed like a burst balloon, admitting the killing cold or heat, whichever it might be, causing death.

When Rock and Shep were at a height level with the ports of the _Dog Star_, they began crawling laterally toward the ship. Rime covered the corallike edges, making them slippery as the comparative warmth of their space suits melted the ice particles. They were about fifty feet from the ship at this point. Rock checked the counter. There was no gamma-ray contamination from the _Dog Star_. It was safe to approach closer.

They got as close as they dared to the port that looked in on the main control room. They could see Leo and Ed working intently on an opened gear-box beside the instrument console. Across the room sat Jack Judas, a grim look on his beetle-browed face. And in his hand the boys could see a blaster.

“They did smuggle weapons aboard, Rock!” Shep said. “They must have hidden them carefully.”

“That proves they planned the scheme from the very beginning,” Rock said.

“And it’s going to make it harder for us, because we’re unarmed,” Shep remarked.

“I believe the boys are stalling them,” Rock said. “They probably doctored the controls and brought the ship down just to give us time to catch up with them.”

“I wish there were some way to let them know we’ve landed,” Shep said. “That is, if Kalmus hasn’t found out already.”

Shep started to move into a better position to see when suddenly his foothold gave away beneath him. His cry blasted loudly over Rock’s receiver. Rock made an instinctive grab for his friend. He barely caught hold of an anchor ring on the other’s space belt in time to keep him from tumbling all the way to the ground. Rock steadied him as Shep thrust about with his feet for a new foothold.

“I thought I was a goner!” Shep said tremulously.

During the boys’ struggles they had evidently released loose material, for they saw a quantity of the porous stone cascade down the wall and strike the side of the ship.

“We’ve got to scram!” Rock said urgently. “They’re bound to have heard that inside! Now they’ll know we’re on Luna!”

They scrambled downward as fast as possible, without being reckless. It seemed as if the lunabase were more slippery than ever. Twice the boys’ feet slipped, and only timely bracing by the other prevented disaster.

When they were about halfway down, Shep’s foot wedged into a crevice.

“Look what I had to do with my big feet!” Shep groaned.

“Don’t worry,” Rock said. “It’ll take them a few minutes to get space suits on if they have decided to come out and investigate.”

Rock gently but firmly began working on his friend’s imprisoned foot. He moved it back and forth, tugging and pushing. But it held fast. Even after several minutes, Shep was still a prisoner.

Then suddenly the thing that the boys had feared happened. The air lock of the _Dog Star_ opened and a ladder was thrust out until it reached the ground. Kalmus and two of his companions began descending. They all carried blasters.

“Now we’re done—” Shep blurted, only to be shushed abruptly by his friend. Shep had forgotten that all the suit radios were on the same wave length.

“I think we’re barking up the wrong tree!” the boys heard Ben Spooner say when they were on the ground. “That wasn’t anything but some loose rock that fell off that hill up there.”

“Rocks don’t just fall on Luna!” Kalmus retorted. “Something has to move them! I still believe those guys have traced us here! Leo must have been able to contact them by radio before I could break up the set!”

“I don’t see anybody around,” Mumbly Pegg remarked.

“’Course you don’t see ’em!” Kalmus growled. “You dead brain! You don’t think they’re standing around waiting to be caught, do you? Start climbing up that hill, both of you!”

Rock eased down as flat as he could get and motioned Shep to do the same. Through his helmet, Rock could see the grimace of pain on Shep’s face as his movement put pressure on the trapped foot. Rock cautioned him not to groan or speak a word.

Over his radio Rock heard Spooner and Pegg breathing hard as they began scrambling up the formation, followed by Kalmus. Rock kept perfectly still, hoping with all his might that the men would not discover them.

“I still think we’re barking up the wrong tree!” stocky Ben Spooner repeated as his breathing grew harder at every upward step.

“Shut up and keep climbing!” came Kalmus’ voice. “They’re bound to be up there!”

Shep was trying manfully to be silent, but every now and then an involuntary sob of pain escaped his lips. They could hear Mumbly Pegg murmuring to himself, in his own peculiar incessant manner.

Now Spooner was getting closer. He was only about fifteen feet away, and, as if following some telepathic message, he continued approaching the youths.

“We’re done for,” Rock thought, with despair. “There’s nothing to keep him from finding us.”

Rock lowered himself still flatter, until the sharp edges of lunar stone pressed dangerously into his inflated suit. Spooner still climbed. Another couple of feet and he would be looking right down on them. They heard the sucking of his tired breath and choking wheezes as if he couldn’t take another step.

“Tony!” Rock heard him call weakly. “I can’t go any higher! Besides, I can see the top and nobody’s up here! I’ve got to come down!”

“Come on down then, you weakling!” Kalmus grated. “What a bunch of saps I brought along with me!”

“I can see the top too,” came Pegg’s voice from another part of the formation. “There’s nobody up here, Tony.”

“I guess you guys were right after all,” Kalmus finally conceded.

It seemed a terribly long time before the men got to the ground and disappeared into the ship. Rock gave them time to remove their space gear before daring to speak over his radio.

“Boy, that’s the closest call we’ll ever have!” Shep said.

“We’re still not out of the woods,” Rock reminded him. “We’ve got to get you free.”

He went after the trapped foot with a more determined vengeance. Shep howled, but Rock finally jerked it free of the stubborn crevice.

When they reached the bottom, Shep was limping and said his ankle hurt. Rock supported him and they headed back toward the _Northern Cross_. They continued with caution, keeping out of the open as much as possible.

“I don’t see that we accomplished much,” Shep said wearily.

“It’s given me another plan, at least,” Rock replied, brushing at a new growth of ice crystals.

“Oh, oh, here we go again!” Shep sighed, then winced as his ankle hurt him again.