The Tom Corbett Space Cadet Megapack. Carey Rockwell
that Tom felt as though he could touch them. They were unloading the first reactor unit, with Astro and Shinny digging the hole. Tom glanced at the clock, turned to the microphone, and announced clearly:
“Attention! Attention! Corbett to Connel. One hour and forty-eight minutes until blast-off time—one hour and forty-eight minutes to blast-off.”
He flipped the switch and watched the screen with rising excitement. The crew on the satellite had completed the installation of the first reactor unit. He saw them blasting off in their jet boats for the second spot. He adjusted the teleceiver and tried to follow them, but they disappeared. He glanced at the clock.
“Attention! Attention! Corbett to Connel. One hour and forty-seven minutes to blast-off—one hour and forty-seven minutes to blast-off.”
On the satellite, in the deep shadow of a protecting cliff, each of the five Earthmen paused involuntarily when they heard Tom’s warning.
“Forget about the time!” snapped Connel. “By the blessed rings of Saturn, we’ll finish this job if it’s the last thing we do!”
Connel went to each of the working figures and adjusted the valve, regulating the air-cooling humidity control on their space suits. “Getting pretty hot, eh, boys?” he joked, as he stopped one and then the other to make the delicate adjustment counteracting the heat that was increasing each second they remained on the satellite.
“How hot do you think it is, sir?” asked Roger.
“Never mind the heat,” said Connel. “These suits were designed to withstand the temperature of the light side of Mercury! It gets boiling there, so I guess we can stand it here for a while.”
One by one, Alfie, Shinny, Roger, and Astro completed their assigned roles, digging the holes, placing the reactors inside, setting the fuse, covering it up, then quickly gathering the equipment, piling back into the three jet boats, and heading for the next point. Landing, they would tumble out of the small space craft almost before the rocket had stopped firing and begin their frantic digging in the hard surface.
Over and over, they heard Tom’s crisp clear count of time. Five minutes passed, then ten, and before they knew it, a full half-hour of the precious time had vanished. They completed the installation of the second unit and climbed back into the jet boats. The first two units had been buried at points protected from the sun by cliffs, and they had been sheltered from the burning rays.
But, approaching the position for the third reactor unit, Connel searched in vain for some shade. He wasted five precious minutes, scouting an area of several miles, but he could find nothing to protect them on the flat plain.
“Better put in the ultraviolet glass shields in our helmets, boys,” he called into the jet-boat communicator. “It’s going to be mighty hot, and dangerous.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” came the replies from the other two jet boats soaring close by.
Roger began refitting their space helmets with the dark glass that would shield them from the strong rays of the enlarging sun.
“Ever been outside in the direct path of the sun with no protection, Roger?” asked Astro.
“No,” replied Roger. “Have you?”
“Once,” said Astro softly. “On the second moon of Mars, Phobos. I was bucking rockets on the old chemical burners. I was on a freighter called the Happy Spaceman. A tube blew on us. Luckily we were close enough to Phobos to make a touchdown, or the leak would have reached the main fuel tanks and blown us clean out to another galaxy.”
“What happened?” asked Roger.
“I had to go outside,” said Astro. “I was junior rocketman in the crew, so naturally I had to do all the dirty work.”
Tom’s warning call from the Polaris control deck, tuned to the open communicators of all the jet boats, broke through the loud-speaker.
“Attention! Attention! Corbett to Connel. One hour and twenty minutes to blast-off time. One hour and twenty minutes to blast-off time.”
The two cadets looked at each other as they heard Tom’s voice, but neither spoke. Finally Roger asked, “What happened on Phobos?”
“No one bothered to tell me,” continued Astro, “that I had to protect myself from the ultraviolet rays of the sun, since Phobos didn’t have an atmosphere. It was one of my first hops into space and I didn’t know too much. I went outside and began working on the tube. I did the job all right, but for three weeks after, my face was swollen and I couldn’t open my eyes. I almost went blind.”
Roger grunted and continued to line the clear plastic fish-bowl helmets with the darker protective shields.
Connel’s voice rang through the cabin over the communicator: “I guess we’d better go down and get it over with. I don’t see anything that will give us any protection down there. Be sure your humidity control is turned up all the way. As soon as you step outside the jet boat, you’re going to be hit by a temperature of four hundred degrees!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” came Shinny’s reply over the intercom. Roger flipped the communicator on and acknowledged the order.
Astro and Shinny followed Connel’s jet boat in a long sweeping dive to the surface of the satellite. Stepping out of the air-cooled jet boat onto the torrid unprotected surface of the flat plain was like stepping into a furnace. Even with space suits as protection, the five Earthmen were forced to work in relays in the digging of the hole for the reactor unit.
“Attention! Attention! Corbett to Connel. One hour exactly to blast-off time! One hour—sixty minutes—to blast-off time.”
Tom flicked the teleceiver microphone off, and on the teleceiver screen, watched his spacemates work under the broiling sun. They were ahead of time. One hour to complete two more units. Tom allowed himself a sigh of hope and relief. They could still snatch the copper satellite from the powerful pull of the sun.
Suddenly Tom heard a sound behind him and whirled around. His eyes bulged in horror.
“Loring!” he gasped.
“Take your hand off that microphone, Corbett,” snarled Loring, “or I’ll freeze you!”
“How—how did you get out?” Tom stammered.
“Your buddy, Manning,” sneered Loring with a short laugh, “decided he wanted to paste my ears back. So I let him. He was so anxious to make me lose a few teeth that he didn’t notice the spoon I kept!”
“Spoon?” asked Tom incredulously.
“Yeah,” said Mason, stepping through the door, a paralo-ray gun leveled at Tom. “A few teeth for a spoon. A good trade. We waited for your pals to leave the ship, and then I short-circuited the electronic lock on the brig.”
Tom stared at the two men unbelievingly.
“All right, Corbett, get over there to that control board,” growled Loring, waving the paralo-ray gun at Tom. “We’re going back to Tara.”
“Tara?” exclaimed Tom. “But Major Connel and the others—they’re—they’re down on the satellite. If I don’t pick them up, they’ll fall into the sun!”
“Well, ain’t that too bad,” sneered Loring. “Listen to that, Mason. If we don’t hang around and pick them up, they’ll fall into the sun!”
Mason laughed harshly and advanced toward Tom. “I only got one regret, Corbett. That I can’t stay around to see Connel and the Manning punk fry! Now get this wagon outta here, and get it out quick!”
CHAPTER 19
“Major!” shouted Astro. “Look! The Polaris! The Polaris is blasting off!”
The five Earthmen stared up at the silvery spaceship that was rapidly disappearing into the clear blue void of space. Without hesitation, Connel raced for the nearest jet boat and roared into the