Crag debated, and finally shrugged his shoulders. "Guess we're elected as angels of mercy. Well, let's go." "Yeah, Florence Nightingale Larkwell," the construction boss spat. He looped a line under the unconscious man's arms and rolled him to the brink of the opening. "Ought to shove him out and let him bounce a while," he growled. Crag didn't answer. He ran the other end of the line around a metal stanchion and signaled Larkwell to edge the inert figure through the hatch. Crag let the line out slowly until it became slack. Larkwell straightened up and leaned against the hatch combing with a foolish look on his face. Crag took one look at his gaping expression. "Oxygen," he snapped. Larkwell looked blank. He seized the extra cylinder from his belt and hooked it into Larkwell's suit, turning the valve. Larkwell started to sway, and almost fell through the hatch combing before Crag managed to pull him to safety. Within moments comprehension dawned on Larkwell's face. Crag quickly checked his own oxygen. It was low. Too low. The time they had lost taking the wrong route ... the time taken to open Bandit's hatch ... had upset Nagel's oxygen calculations. It was something else to remember in the future. He switched cylinders, then made a rapid calculation. It was evident they couldn't carry the injured man back with the amount of oxygen remaining. He got on the interphones and outlined the problem to Nagel. "Try one of Bandit's cylinders," he suggested. "They just might fit." "No go. I've already looked them over." He kicked the problem around in his mind. "Here's the routine," he told him. "You start out to meet us with a couple of extra cylinders. We'll take along a couple of Bandit's spares to last this critter until you can modify the valves on his suit to fit our equipment. Prochaska can guide the works. Okay?" "Roger," Prochaska cut in. Nagel gave an affirmative grunt. Crag lowered two of Bandit's cylinders and the stretcher to the floor of the crater, then took a last look around the cabin. Gotch, he knew, would ask him a thousand technical questions regarding the rocket's construction, equipment, and provisioning. He filed the mental pictures away for later analysis and turned to Larkwell. "Let's go." They descended to the plain and rolled the unconscious crewman onto the stretcher. Crag grunted as he hoisted his end. It wasn't going to be easy. The return trip proved a nightmare. Despite the moon's low surface gravity--one-sixth that of earth--the stretcher seemed an intolerable weight pulling at their arms. They trudged slowly toward the Aztec with Crag in the lead, their feet kicking up little fountains of dust.