“We have to have a Medic—­”

Rip nodded without looking away from the screen.

“Can one of the flitters be shielded?” The Cargo-apprentice persisted.

“That’s a thought!  Ali should know—­” Rip reached for the inter-com mike.  “Engines!”

“So you are alive?” Ali’s voice had a bite in it.  “About time you’re contacting.  Where are we?  Besides being lopsided from a recruit’s scrambled set-down, I mean.”

“In the Big Burn.  Come top-side.  Wait—­how’s Weeks?”

“He has a devil’s own headache, but he hasn’t blacked out yet.  Looks like his immunity holds in part.  I’ve sent him bunkside for a while with a couple of pain pills.  So we’ve made it—­”

He must have left to join them for when Rip answered:  “After a fashion,” into the mike there was no reply.

And the clang of his boot plates on the ladder heralded his arrival at their post.  There was an interval for him to view the outer world and accept the verdict of the counter and then Rip voiced Dane’s question: 

“Can we shield one of the flitters well enough to cross that?  I can’t take the Queen up and earth her again—­”

“I know you can’t!” the acting-engineer cut in.  “Maybe you could get her off world, but you’ll come close to blasting out when you try for another landing.  Fuel doesn’t go on forever—­though some of you space jockeys seem to think it does.  The flitter?  Well, we’ve some spare rocket linings.  But it’s going to be a job and a half to get those beaten out and reassembled.  And, frankly, the space whirly one who flies her had better be suited and praying loudly when he takes off.  We can always try—­” He was frowning, already busied with the problem which was one for his department.

So with intervals of snatched sleep, hurried meals and the time which must be given to tending their unconscious charges, Rip and Dane became only hands to be directed by Ali’s brain and garnered knowledge.  Weeks slept off the worst of his pain and, though he complained of weakness, he tottered back on duty to help.

The flitter—­an air sled intended to hold three men and supplies for exploring trips on strange-worlds—­was first stripped of all non-essentials until what remained was not much more than the pilot’s seat and the motor.  Then they labored to build up a shielding of the tough radiation dulling alloy which was used to line rocket tubes.  And they could only praise the foresight of Stotz who carried such a full supply of spare parts and tools.  It was a task over which they often despaired, and Ali improvised frantically, performing weird adjustments of engineering structure.  He was still unsatisfied when they had done.

“She’ll fly,” he admitted.  “And she’s the best we can do.  But it’ll depend a lot on how far she has to go over ‘hot’ country.  Which way do we head her?”

Rip had been busy with a map of Terra—­a small thing he had discovered in one of the travel recordings carried for crew entertainment.