the last either of us remembered. Maybe one of the skis collapsed. Maybe one of the drives surged when I cut it back. Maybe there was a rock hidden under the ice. Maybe the ice wasn't thick enough. Maybe a lot of things. We'd never know.

It was small comfort to be sure that according to both the instruments and the seat of my pants there was nothing wrong with my piloting.

That didn't matter. Sixty more people would very probably die if we didn't do the probably impossible. The other ships wouldn't have enough fuel to pull up and get back in orbit if they came down and discovered that the landing strip wasn't there.

"So now what?" Helene finally broke the long silence. "We've looked around and picked up enough pieces to maybe get us there. You're the boss; you know how you want to do it, but I've got to help you. How about letting me in on the secret?"

I swore silently at the guy who had decided that the younger half of the crews should be conditioned to look to the older half for leadership in emergencies. In space you don't want leadership; you want coordination and automatic cooperation. "Okay," I said, not turning, "I'll tell you. But are you sure you'd rather not remain in blissful ignorance?" I regretted the sarcasm instantly.

"I'm old enough to know the facts of death."

"I'll take your word for it, kid. Hell, you already know. Six thousand miles. Seventy days. With just two of us, it'll probably take thirty of them to hack out a strip. It's simple arithmetic."

"I know that, Marsh, but what do we do about it?"

"Get some sleep. Then we'll pick up what pieces we can find and jury rig anything we can't find pieces of. When we find out how much fuel we've got, we can figure out how fast we dare travel. We should be able to find all we can carry; the tanks were self-sealing. When we're sure we've got it all, we take another eight hours sleep and pull out. From then on we run around the clock; ten hours on and ten off, until something blows up. If anything does, we're probably done.

"So maybe we've got one chance in fifty. Maybe in a hundred. A thousand. A million. It doesn't matter much. Let's get our sleep, and while we're at it, we might try praying a little. This is a time for it if there ever was one."

She was silent a moment, then said, "You know, Marsh, you haven't told 

 Prev. P 3/15 next