It got hot and stayed hot and sweat ran down and I itched all over and couldn't scratch and sweat got into my eyes and burned. Peewee must have been parboiled. Even when the trail wound through deep gorges lighted only by reflection off the far wall, so dark that we turned on headlamps, I still was hot-and when we curved back into naked sunshine, it was almost unbearable. The temptation to kick the chin valve, let air pour in and cool me, was almost too much. The desire to be cool seemed more important than the need to breathe an hour hence.
If I had been alone, I might have done it and died. But Peewee was worse off than I was. If she could stand it, I had to.
I had wondered how we could be so lost so close to human habitation -and how crawly monsters could hide a base only forty miles from Tombaugh Station. Well, I had time to think and could figure it out because I could see the Moon around me.
Compared with the Moon the Arctic is swarming with people. The Moon's area is about equal to Asia-with fewer people than Centerville. It might be a century before anyone explored that plain where Wormface was based. A rocket ship passing over wouldn't notice anything even if camouflage hadn't been used; a man in a space suit would never go there; a man in a crawler would find their base only by accident even if he took the pass we were in and ranged around that plain. The lunar mapping satellite could photograph it and rephotograph, then a technician in London might note a tiny difference on two films. Maybe. Years later somebody might check up-if there wasn't something more urgent to do in a pioneer outpost where everything is new and urgent.
As for radar sightings-there were unexplained radar sightings before I was born.
Wormface could sit there, as close to Tombaugh Station as Dallas is to Fort Worth, and not fret, snug as a snake under house. Too many square miles, not enough people.
Too incredibly many square miles... . Our whole world was harsh bright cliffs and dark shadows and black sky, and endless putting one foot in front of the other.
But eventually we were going downhill oftener than up and at weary last we came to a turn where we could see out over a hot bright plain.
I There were mountains awfully far away; even from our height, up a thousand feet or so, they were beyond the horizon. I looked out over that plain, too dead beat to feel triumphant, then glanced at Earth and tried to estimate due west.
Peewee touched her helmet to mine. "There it is, Kip."
"Where?" She pointed and I caught a glint on a silvery dome.
The Mother Thing trilled at my spine ("What is it, children?")
"Tombaugh Station, Mother Thing."
Her answer was wordless assurance that we were good children and that she had known that we could do it.
The station may have been ten miles away. Distances were hard to judge, what with that funny horizon and never anything for comparison- I didn't even know how big the dome was. "Peewee, do we dare use radio?"
She turned and looked back. I did also; we were about as alone as could be. "Let's risk it."
"What frequency?"
"Same as before. Space operations. I think."
So I tried. "Tombaugh Station. Come in, Tombaugh Station. Do you read me?" Then Peewee tried. I listened up and down the band I was equipped for. No luck.
I shifted to horn antenna, aiming at the glint of light. No answer.
"We're wasting time, Peewee. Let's start slogging."
She turned slowly away. I could feel her disappointment-I had trembled with eagerness myself. I caught up with her and touched helmets. Don't let it throw you, Peewee. They can't listen all day for us to call. We see it, now we'll walk it."
"I know," she said dully.
As we started down we lost sight of Tombaugh Station, not only from twists and turns but because we dropped it below the horizon. I kept calling as long as there seemed any hope, then shut it off to save breath and battery.
We were about halfway down the outer slope when Peewee slowed and stopped-sank to the ground and sat still.
I hurried to her. "Peewee!"
"Kip," she said faintly, "could you go get somebody? Please? You know the way now. I'll wait here. Please, Kip?"
"Peewee!" I said sharply. "Get up! You've got to keep moving."
"I c- c- can't!" She began to cry. "I'm so thirsty... and my legs-" She passed out.
"Peewee!" I shook her shoulder. "You can't quit now! Mother Thing! -you tell her!"
Her eyelids fluttered. "Keep telling her, Mother Thing!" I flopped Peewee over and got to work. Hypoxia hits as fast as a jab on the button. I didn't need to see her blood-color index to know it read DANGER; the gauges on her bottles told me. The oxygen bottles showed empty, the oxy-helium tank was practically so. I closed her exhaust valves, overrode her chin valve with the outside valve and let what was left in the oxy-helium bottle flow into her suit. When it started to swell I cut back the flow and barely cracked one exhaust valve. Not until then did I close stop valves and remove the empty bottle.
I found myself balked by a ridiculous thing.
Peewee had tied me too well; I couldn't reach the knot! I could feel it with my left hand but couldn't get my right hand around; the bottle on my front was in the way-and I couldn't work the knot loose with one hand.
I made myself stop panicking. My knife-of course, my knife! It was an old scout knife with a loop to hang it from a belt, which was where it was. But the map hooks on Oscar's belt were large for it and I had had to force it on. I twisted it until the loop broke.
Then I couldn't get the little blade open. Space-suit gauntlets don't have thumb nails.
I said to myself: Kip, quit running in circles. This is easy. All you have to do is open a knife-and you've got to... because Peewee is suffocating. I looked around for a sliver of rock, anything that could pinch-hit for a thumb nail. Then I checked my belt.
The prospector's hammer did it, the chisel end of the head was sharp enough to open the blade. I cut the clothesline away.
I was still blocked. I wanted very badly to get at a bottle on my back. When I had thrown away that empty and put the last fresh one on my back, I had started feeding from it and saved the almost-half-charge in the other one. I meant to save it for a rainy day and split it with Peewee. Now was the time-she was out of air, I was practically so in one bottle but still had that half-charge in the other-plus an eighth of a charge or less in the bottle that contained straight oxygen (the best I could hope for in equalizing pressures), I had planned to surprise her with a one-quarter charge of oxy-helium, which would last longer and give more cooling. A real knight-errant plan, I thought. I didn't waste two seconds discarding it.
I couldn't get that bottle off my back!
Maybe if I hadn't modified the backpack for nonregulation bottles I could have done it. The manual says: "Reach over your shoulder with the opposite arm, close stop valves at bottle and helmet, disconnect the shackle-" My pack didn't have shackles; I had substituted straps. But I still don't think you can reach over your shoulder in a pressurized suit and do anything effective. I think that was written by a man at a desk. Maybe he had seen it done under favorable conditions. Maybe he had done it, but was one of those freaks who can dislocate both shoulders. But I'll bet a full charge of oxygen that the riggers around Space Station Two did it for each other as Peewee and I had, or went inside and deflated.
If I ever get a chance, I'll change that. Everything you have to do in a space suit should be arranged to do in front-valves, shackles, everything, even if it is to affect something in back. We aren't like Wormface, with eyes all around and arms that bend in a dozen places; we're built to work in front of us-that goes triple in a space suit.