eir
servicing ports. Rodan's was as the manufacturer intended it. But
Dutch's was jimmied the same as his and Lester's.

Nelsen swung Helen around to face him, and unlatched a port at her
Archer's shoulder.

"He put even you on a short string, kid," he pronounced bitterly, after
a moment. "Well, at least we can give you his nuclear battery for a
while, and let him have his chemical cell back."

Helen seemed about to attack him. But then her look wavered; confusion
and pain came into her face.

Nelsen was aware that he was doing almost all of the talking, but maybe
this had to be.

"So we've got a long walk," he said. "Toward the Tovie settlement. In
Archers of mostly much-reduced range. Whose fault the situation is,
can't change anything a bit. This is a life-or-death proposition, with
lasting-time the most important factor. So let's get started. Has
anybody got any suggestions to increase our chances?"

Both Rodan and Dutch had come to. Rodan said nothing. His look was pure
poison.

Dutch sneered. "Smart damn kid you are, huh, Nelsen? _You think!_ Wait
till you and your mumblin' crackpot pal get out there! I'll watch both
of you go bust, squirt!"

Lester seemed not to hear these remarks. "All that gypsum, Frank," he
said. "The water-and-oxygen mineral. But this is for real. There's no
gimmick--no energy-source--to release it and save us..."

Frank Nelsen untied Rodan's and Dutch's feet, and, at pistol point,
ordered them to move out ahead. From the charts he knew the
bearing--straight toward the constellation Cassiopeia, at this hour,
across an arm of Mare Nova, then along a pass that cut through the
mountains. Eight hundred hopeless miles...! Well, how did he know,
really? How much could a human body take? How fast could they go? How
long would the chemical batteries actually last? What breaks _might_
appear?

They loped along, even Rodan hurrying. They made a hundred miles in the
hours before darkness. With just Helen's shoulder lamp showing the way,
they continued onward through the mountains.

Was there truly much to tell, in that slow, losing struggle? Nelsen
attached the oxygen flask to his air system for a while, relieving the
drain on his battery. Then he gave the flask to Lester. Later he began
to move the nuclear battery around to all the Archers, to conserve all
of the other batteries a little. Soon they filled the drinking-water
tanks of their armor, so that they could discard the flask, whos