Asimov's Mysteries

Mike glanced from one to the other doubtfully and then coughed to attract their attention. 'Well, gents, seeing that we're all in the same fix, I guess there's no use hogging things.' He drew a small bottle out of his pocket that was filled with a greenish liquid. 'Grad A Jabra this is. I ain't too proud to share and share alike.'

Brandon exhibited the first signs of pleasure for over a day. 'Martian Jabra water. Why didn't you say so before?'

But as he reached for it, a firm hand clamped down upon his wrist. He looked up into the calm blue eyes of Warren Moore.

'Don't be a fool,' said Moore, 'there isn't enough to keep us drunk for three days. What do you want to do? Go on a tear now and then die cold sober? Let's save this for the last six hours when the air gets stuffy and breathing hurts-then we'll finish the bottle among as and never know when the end comes or care.'

Brandon's hand fell away reluctantly. 'Damn it, Warren, you'd bleed ice if you were cut. How can you think straight at a time like this?' He motioned to Mike and the bottle was once more stowed away. Brandon walked to the porthole and gazed out.

Moore approached and placed a kindly arm over the shoulders of the younger man. 'Why take it so hard, man?' he asked. 'You can't last at this rate. Inside of twenty-four hours you'll be a madman if you keep this up.'

There was no answer. Brandon stared bitterly at the globe that filled almost the entire porthole, so Moore continued, 'Watching Vesta won't do you any good either.'

Mike Shea lumbered up to the porthole. 'We'd be safe if we were only down there on Vesta. There're people there. How far away are we?'

'Not more than three or four hundred miles judging from its apparent size,' answered Moore. 'You must remember that it is only two hundred miles in diameter.'

'Three hundred miles from salvation,' murmured Brandon, 'and we might as well be a million. If there were only a way to get ourselves out of the orbit this rotten fragment adopted. You know, manage to give ourselves a push so as to start falling. There'd be no danger of crashing if we did, because that midget hasn't got enough gravity to crush a cream puff.'

'It has enough to keep us in the orbit,' retorted Brandon. 'It must have picked us up while we were lying unconscious after the crash. Wish it had come closer; we might have been able to land on it.'

'Funny place, Vesta,' observed Mike Shea. 'I was down there two-three times. What a dump! It's all covered with some stuff like snow, only it ain't snow. I forget what they call it.' 

'Frozen carbon dioxide?' prompted Moore 'Yeah, dry ice. that carbon stuff, that's it. They say that's what makes Vesta so shiny.'

Of course! That would give it a high albedo.'

Mike cocked a suspicious eye at Moore and decided to let it pass. 'It's hard to see anything down there on account of the snow, but if you look close'-he pointed-'you can see a sort of gray smudge. I think that's Bennett's dome. That's where they keep the observatory. And there is Calorn's dome up there.

That's a fuel station, that is. There're plenty more, too, only I don't see them.'

He hesitated and then turned to Moore. 'Listen, boss, I've been thinking. Wouldn't they be looking for us as soon as they hear about the crash?And wouldn't we be easy to find from Vesta, seeing we're so close?'

Moore shook his head, 'No, Mike, they won't be looking for us. No one's going to find out about the crash until the Silver Queen fails to turn up on schedule. You see, when the asteroid hit, we didn't have time to send out an SOS'-he sighed-'and they won't find us down there at Vesta, either. We're so small that even at our distance they couldn't see us unless they knew what they were looking for, and exactly where to look.'

'Hmm.' Mike's forehead was corrugated in deep thought. Then we've got to get to Vesta before three days are up.'

'You've got the gist of the matter, Mike. Now, if we only knew how to go about it, eh?'

Brandon suddenly exploded, 'Will you two stop this infernal chitter-chatter and do something? For God's sake, do something.'

Moore shrugged his shoulders and without answer returned to the couch. He lounged at ease, apparently carefree, but there was the tiniest crease between his eyes which bespoke concentration.

There was no doubt about it; they were in a bad spot. He reviewed the events of the preceding day for perhaps the twentieth time.

After the asteroid had struck, tearing the ship apart, he'd gone out like a light; for how long he didn't know, his own watch being broken and no other timepiece available. When he came to, he found himself, along with Mark Brandon, who shared his room, and Mike Shea, a member of the crew, sole occupants of all that was left of the Silver Queen. This remnant was now careening in an orbit about Vesta. At present, things were fairly comfortable. There was a food supply that would last a week. Likewise there was a regional Gravitator under the room that kept them at normal weight and continue to do so for an indefinite time, certainly for longer than the air would last. The lighting system was less satisfactory but had held on so far.

There was no doubt, however, where the joker in the pack lay. Three days' air! Not that there weren't other disheartening features. There was no heating system-though it would take a long time for the ship to radiate enough heat into the vacuum of space to render them too uncomfortable. Far more important was the fact that their part of the ship had neither a means of communication nor a propulsive mechanism. Moore sighed. One fuel jet in working order would fix everything, for one blast in the right direction would send them safely to Vesta.

The crease between his eyes deepened. What was to be done? They had but one spacesuit among them, one heat ray, and one detonator. That was the sum total of space appliances after a thorough search of the accessible parts of the ship. A pretty hopeless mess, that.

Moore shrugged, rose, and drew himself a glass of water. He swallowed it mechanically, still deep in thought, when an idea struck him. He glanced curiously at the empty cup in his hand.

'Say, Mike,' he said, 'what kind of water supply have we? Funny that I never thought of that before.'

Mike's eyes opened to their fullest extent in an expression of ludicrous surprise. 'Didn't you know, boss?'

'Know what!' asked Moore impatiently.

'We've got all the water there was.' He waved his hand in an all-inclusive gesture. He paused, but as Moore's expression showed nothing but total mystification, he elaborated, 'Don't you see? We've got the main tank, the place where all the water for the whole ship was stored.' He pointed to one of the walls.

'Do you mean to say that there's a tank full of water adjoining us?'

Mike nodded vigorously, 'Yep! Cubic vat a hundred feet each way. And she's three-quarters full.'

Moore was astonished. 'Seven hundredand fifty thousand cubic feetof water.'Then suddenly:'Why hasn't it run out through the broken pipes?'

'It only has one main outlet, which runs down the corridor just outside this room. I was fixing that main when the asteroid hit and had to shut it off. After I came to I opened the pipe leading to our faucet, but that's the only outlet open now.'

'Oh.' Moore had a curious feeling way down deep inside. An idea had half-formed in his brain, but for the life of him he could not drag it into the light of day. He knew only that there was something in what he had just heard that had some important meaning but he just could not place his finger on it.

Brandon, meanwhile, had been listening to Shea in silence, and now he emitted a short, humorless laugh.

'Fate seems to be having its fill of fun with us, I see. First, it puts us within arm's reach of a place of safety and then sees to it that we have no way of getting there.