Stand by for Mars!

  CHAPTER 17

  "Astro! Roger!" yelled Tom. He opened his eyes and then felt the weighton his chest. A section of the control board had fallen across himpinning his left arm to his side. He reached for the railing around theacceleration chair with his right and discovered he still held theswitch for the water sprinkler. He started to flip it on, then sniffedthe air, and smelling no trace of smoke, dropped the switch. Heunstrapped himself from the acceleration chair with his right hand andthen slowly, with great effort, pushed the section of the control boardoff him. He stood up rubbing his left arm.

  "Astro? Roger?!" he called again, and scrambled over the brokenequipment that was strewn over the deck. He stumbled over more rubblethat was once a precision instrument panel and climbed the ladderleading to the radar deck.

  "Roger!" he yelled. "Roger, are you all right?" He pushed severalshattered instruments out of the way and looked around the shambles thatonce had been a room. He didn't see Roger.

  He began to scramble through the litter on the deck, kicking asideinstruments that were nearly priceless, so delicately were they made.Suddenly a wave of cold fear gripped him and he began tearing throughthe rubble desperately. From beneath a heavy tube casing, he could seethe outstretched arm of Roger.

  He squatted down, bending his legs and keeping his back straight. Thengripping the heavy casing on one side, he tried to stand up. It was toomuch 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 andstumbled over to the head of the ladder.

  "Up here, Astro," he yelled, "on the radar deck. Roger's pinned underthe radar scanner casing!"

  Tom turned back to the casing, and looking around the littered deckdesperately, grabbed an eight-foot length of steel pipe that had beensnapped off like a twig by the force of the crash.

  Barely able to lift it, he shoved it with all his strength to get theend of the pipe beneath the casing.

  "Here, let me get at that thing," growled Astro from behind. Tom steppedback, half falling out of the Venusian's way, and watched as Astro gotdown on his hands and knees, putting his shoulder against the case. Helifted it about three inches, then slowly, still balancing the weight onhis shoulder, shifted his position, braced it with his hands and beganto straighten up. The casing came up from the floor as the huge cadetstrained against it.

  "All--right--Tom--" he gasped, "see if you can get a hold on Roger andpull him out!"

  Tom scrambled back and grabbed Roger's uniform. He pulled, and slowlythe 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 hadlifted it. He eased it back down to the floor on his knees and droppedit the last few inches. He sat on the floor beside it and hung his headbetween his knees.

  "Are you all right, Astro?" asked Tom.

  "Never mind me," panted Astro between deep gasps for breath, "just seeif 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 knowabout internal injuries."

  "He wasn't pinned under that thing," said Astro at last. "It was restingon 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," saidTom.

  "I came up from the power deck," said Astro, "all the way through theship. You see this radar deck?" He made a sweeping gesture around theroom that looked like a junk heap. "Well, it's in good shape, comparedto the rest of the ship. The power deck has the rocket motors where themaster panel should be and the panel is ready to go into what's left ofthe reactant chamber. The jet boat is nothing but a worthless piece ofjunk!"

  The three boys considered the fate of the jet boat soberly. FinallyAstro broke the silence with a question. "Where do you think we are?"

  "Somewhere in the New Sahara desert," answered Tom. "I had the chartprojector on just before we splashed in, but I can't tell you any morethan that."

  "Well, at least we have plenty of water," sighed Roger.

  "You _had_ plenty of water. The tanks were smashed when we came in. Noteven 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 dinosaurswere 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 Venusianfatfish!"

  "Then let's get out of here and take a look," said Tom.

  The three bruised but otherwise healthy cadets climbed slowly down tothe control deck and headed for the galley, where Tom found six plasticcontainers of Martian water.

  "Spaceman, this is the biggest hunk of luck we've had in the last twohours," 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 mighthave to last a long time."

  "Yeah," said Roger, "a _long_ time. I've been thinking about our chancesof 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 achronometer on the bulkhead behind Astro. "It's still running. I made amental note before we splashed in, it was eight-O-seven. That clocksays nine-O-three. It doesn't begin to get hot here until three o'clockin the afternoon."

  "I think you're wrong two ways," said Tom. "In the first place, CaptainStrong probably has a unit out looking for us right now. And in thesecond place, as long as we stay with the ship, we've got shade. Thatsun is only bad because the atmosphere is thinner here on Mars, andeasier to burn through. But if we stay out of the sun, we're O.K. Justsit back and wait for Strong!"

  Roger shrugged his shoulders.

  "Well," commented Astro with a grin, "I'm not going to sit aroundwaiting for Strong without eating!" He tore open a plastic package ofroast-beef sandwiches and began eating. Tom measured out three smallcups of Martian water.

  "After we eat," suggested Roger, "I think we ought to take a look aroundoutside and try to set up an identification signal."

  "That's a good idea," said Tom, "but don't you think the ship itself isbig 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 ofthe 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 smackonto the surface of Mars. And our speed was great enough to resist thegravity pull of the planet, keeping us horizontal with the surface ofthe desert. We skidded in like a kid does on a sled, instead of comingin on our nose!"

  "Well, blast my jets!" said Astro softly.

  "In that case," said Roger, "we must have left a pretty long skid markin
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 couldsend 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 takea sight on the sun," replied Roger.

  "Can you do it without your astrogation prism?" asked Astro.

  "Navigation, not astrogation, Astro," said Roger. "Like the ancientsailors used on the oceans back on Earth hundreds of years ago. Onlything is, I'll have to work up the logarithms by hand, instead of usingthe computer. Might be a little rough, but it'll be close enough forwhat we want."

  The three cadets finished the remaining sandwiches and then picked theirway back through the ship to the control deck. There, they rummagedthrough the pile of broken and shattered instruments.

  "If we could find just one tube that hasn't been damaged, I think Imight be able to rig up some sort of one-lung communications set," saidRoger. "It might have enough range to get a message to the nearestatmosphere booster station."

  "Nothing but a pile of junk here, Roger," said Tom. "We might findsomething on the radar deck."

  The three members of the _Polaris_ unit climbed over the rubble and madetheir way to the radar deck, and started their search for an undamagedtube. 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'tnotice it before, but it's getting hotter here than on the power deck ona 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 ifanyone shows up, all they'll find is three space cadets fried on thehalf shell of a spaceship!"

  "Listen, Roger," said Tom, "as soon as we fail to check in, the wholeMars Solar Guard fleet will be out looking for us. Our last report willshow them we were heading in this direction. It won't take CaptainStrong long to figure out that we might have run out of fuel, and, withthat skid mark in the sand trailing back for twenty miles, all we haveto 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 ofbrown sand, stretching as far as the horizon and meeting the cloudlessblue sky. Shimmering in the heat, the New Sahara desert of Mars was justbeginning to warm up for the day under the bleaching sun. The thinatmosphere offered little protection against the blazing heat rays.

  "Nothing but sand," said Tom. "Maybe something is still hot on the powerdeck." He looked at Astro.

  "I checked it before I came topside," said Astro. "I've heard that noisebefore. It can only mean one thing."

  "What's that?" asked Roger.

  Astro turned quickly and walked to the opposite side of the litteredcontrol deck. He pushed a pile of junk out of the way for a clear viewof 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 weekand can pile up sand for two hundred feet. Sometimes the velocityreaches as much as a hundred and sixty miles an hour. Once, in thesouth, we got caught in one, and it was so bad we had to blast off. Andit took all the power we had to do it!"

  The three cadets stood transfixed as they gazed through the crystal portat the oncoming storm. The tremendous black cloud rolled toward thespaceship in huge folds that billowed upward and back inthree-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 someoxygen bottles along with us, just in case. Astro, bring the rest of theMartian 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 sandwill come in here by the ton and there's nothing to stop it," Tomanswered Roger, but kept his eyes on the churning black cloud. Already,the first gusts of wind were lashing at the stricken _Lady Venus_.