Part 13 (1/2)

That night, the three of us stood guard in the control-room together. The drive was smashed anyway. The wires were soldered in so many places by now that the control panel was a ma.s.s of s.h.i.+ning alloy, and I knew that a few more such sabotagings and it would be impossible to patch it together any more -- if it wasn't so already.

The next night, I just didn't knock off. I continued soldering right on after dinner (and a pretty skimpy dinner it was, now that we were on close rations) and far on into the night.

By morning, it was as if I hadn't done a thing.

'I give up,' I announced, surveying the damage. 'I don't see any sense in ruining my nerves trying to fix a thing that won't stay fixed.'

Holdreth nodded. He looked terribly pale. 'We'll have to find some new approach.'

'Yeah. Some new approach.'

I yanked open the food closet and examined our stock. Even figuring in the synthetics we would have fed to the animals if we hadn't released them, we were low on food. We had overstayed even the safety margin. It would be a hungry trip back -- if we ever did get back.

I clambered through the hatch and sprawled down on a big rock near the s.h.i.+p. One of the furless dogs came over and nuzzled in my s.h.i.+rt. Davison stepped to the hatch and called down to me.

'What are you doing out there, Gus?'

'Just getting a little fresh air. I'm sick of living aboard that s.h.i.+p.' I scratched the dog behind his pointed ears, and looked around.

The animals had lost most of their curiosity about us, and didn't congregate the way they used to. They were meandering all over the plain, nibbling at little deposits of a white doughy substance. It precipitated every night. 'Manna,' we called it. All the animals seemed to live on it.

I folded my arms and leaned back.

We were getting to look awfully lean by the eighth day. I wasn't even trying to fix the s.h.i.+p any more; the hunger was starting to get me. But I saw Davison puttering around with my solderbeam.

'What are you doing?'

'I'm going to repair the drive,' he said. 'You don't want to, but we can't just sit around, you know.' His nose was deep in my repair guide, and he was fumbling with the release on the solderbeam.

I shrugged. 'Go ahead, if you want to.' I didn't care what he did. All I cared about was the gaping emptiness in my stomach, and about the dimly grasped fact that somehow we were stuck here for good.

'Gus?'

'Yeah?'

'I think it's time I told you something. I've been eating the manna for four days. It's good. It's nouris.h.i.+ng stuff.'

'You've been eating -- the manna? Something that grows on an alien world? You crazy?'

'What else can we do? Starve?'

I smiled feebly, admitting that he was right. From somewhere in the back of the s.h.i.+p came the sounds of Holdreth moving around. Holdreth had taken this thing worse than any of us. He had a family back on Earth, and he was beginning to realize that he wasn't ever going to see them again.

'Why don't you get Holdreth?' Davison suggested. 'Go out there and stuff yourselves with the manna. You've got to eat something.'

'Yeah. What can I lose?' Moving like a mechanical man, I headed towards Holdreth's cabin. We would go out and eat the manna and cease being hungry, one way or another.

'Clyde?' I called. 'Clyde?'

I entered his cabin. He was sitting at his desk, shaking convulsively, staring at the two streams of blood that trickled in red spurts from his slashed wrists.

_'Clyde!'_ He made no protest as I dragged him towards the infirmary cabin and got tourniquets around his arms, cutting off the bleeding. He just stared dully ahead, sobbing.

I slapped him and he came around. He shook his head dizzily, as if he didn't know where he was.

'I -- I -- '.

'Easy, Clyde. Everything's all right.'

'It's _not_ all right,' he said hollowly. 'I'm still alive. Why didn't you let me die? Why didn't you -- '

Davison entered the cabin. 'What's been happening, Gus?'

'It's Clyde. The pressure's getting him. He tried to kill himself, but I think he's all right now. Get him something to eat, will you?'

We had Holdreth straightened around by evening. Davison gathered as much of the manna as he could find, and we held a feast.

'I wish we had nerve enough to kill some of the local fauna,' Davison said. 'Then we'd have a feast -- steaks and everything!'

'The bacteria,' Holdreth pointed out quietly. 'We don't dare.'

'I know. But it's a thought.'

'No more thoughts,' I said sharply. 'Tomorrow morning we start work on the drive panel again. Maybe with some food in our bellies we'll be able to keep awake and see what's happening here.'

Holdreth smiled. 'Good. I can't wait to get out of this s.h.i.+p and back to a normal existence. G.o.d, I just can't wait!'

'Let's get some sleep,' I said. 'Tomorrow we'll give it another try. We'll get back,' I said with a confidence I didn't feel.

The following morning I rose early and got my tool-kit. My head was clear, and I was trying to put the pieces together without much luck. I started towards the control cabin.

And stopped.

And looked out the viewport.

I went back and awoke Holdreth and Davison. 'Take a look out the port,' I said hoa.r.s.ely.

They looked. They gaped.

'It looks just like my house,' Holdreth said. 'My house on Earth.' 'With all the comforts of home inside, I'll bet.' I walked forward uneasily and lowered myself through the hatch. 'Let's go look at it.'

We approached it, while the animals frolicked around us. The big giraffe came near and shook its head gravely. The house stood in the middle of the clearing, small and neat and freshly painted.