t, and if we should miss connections passing the inner
planets, what the sun would do to us at the closest point and where
what's left of us would go on the back-swing, would be just too bad!
Besides, if we can get hold of the _Sirius_, they'll come loaded for
bear, and we may be able to do something about the rest of the folks
out here."

* * * * *

"Oh!" breathed the girl. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could!
I thought, of course, they'd all be...." her voice died away.

"Not necessarily--there's always a chance. That's why I'm trying the
ultra-radio first. However, either course will take lots of power,
so the first thing I've got to do is to build a power plant. I'm
going to run a penstock up those falls, and put in a turbine, driving
a high-tension alternator. Then, while I'm trying to build the
ultra-radio, I'll be charging our accumulators, so that no time will
be lost in case the radio fails. If it does fail--and remember I'm not
counting on its working--of course I'll tackle the transmission and
receptor units before we start out to drift it."

"You say it easy, Steve, but how can you build all those things, with
nothing to work with?"

"It's going to be a real job--I'm not try to kid you into thinking it'll
be either easy or quick. Here's the way everything will go. Before I can
even lay the first length of the penstock, I've got to have the pipe--to
make which I've got to have flat steel--to get which I'll have to cut
some of the partitions out of this ship of ours--to do which I'll have
to have a cutting torch--to make which I'll have to forge nozzles out of
block metal and to run which I'll have to have gas--to get which I'll
have to mine coal and build a gas-plant--to do which...."

"Good heavens, Steve, are you going back to the Stone Age? I never
thought of half those things. Why, it's impossible!"

"Not quite, guy. Things could be a lot worse--that's why I brought along
the whole 'Forlorn Hope,' instead of just the lifeboat. As it is, we've
got several thousand tons of spare steel and lots of copper. We've got
ordinary tools and a few light motors, blowers, and such stuff. That
gives me a great big start--I won't have to mine the ores and smelt the
metals, as would have been necessary otherwise. However, it'll be plenty
bad. I'll have to start out in a pretty crude fashion, and for some of
the stuff I'll need I'll have to make, not only the machine that makes
the