HALF AROUND PLUTO BY MANLY WADE WELLMAN _Pluto was a coffin world, airless, utterly cold. And they had ten days to reach Base Camp, ten thousand miles away._ [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, December 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Their glassite space helmets fogged, and their metal glove joints stiffened in the incredible surface cold: but the two men who could work finished their job. In the black sky glistened the little arclight of the sun, a sixteen-hundredth of the blaze that fell on Earth. Around them sulked Pluto's crags and gullies, sheathed with the hard-frozen pallor that had been Pluto's atmosphere, eons ago. From the wrecked cylinder of the scout rocket they had dragged two interior girders, ready-curved at the ends. These, clamped side by side with transverse brackets and decked with bulkhead metal, managed to look like a sled. At the rear they set a salvaged engine unit. For steering, they rigged a boom shaft to warp the runners right or left. For cargo, they piled the sled with full containers, ration boxes, the foil tent, what instruments they could detach and carry, armfuls of heat-tools, a crowbar, a hatchet, a few other items. Moving back from the finished work, one of them stumbled against the other. Instantly the two puffy, soot-black shapes were crouched, gloved fists up, fierce in the system's duskiest corner. Then the moment passed. Warily, helmets turned toward each other, they went back in the half-stripped wreck. In the still airtight control room, lighted by one bulb, their officer stirred on his bedstrip. His tunic had been pulled off, his broken left arm and collarbone set and splinted. Under a fillet of bandage, his gaunt young face looked pale, but he had his wits back. "The appropriate question," he said, "is 'What happened?'" The two men were removing their helmets. "Conked and crashed, sir," said Jenks, the smaller one, uncovering a sallow, hollow-cheeked face. Lieutenant Wofforth sat up, supporting himself on his sound arm. "How long have I been out?" "Maybe forty hours, sir. Delirious. Corbett and me did the best we could. Take it easy, sir," he said as Wofforth began to get up. "Lie back. We've done what Emergency Plan Six says--bolted a sled together and coupled on a sound engine unit for power." "Quite a haul back to base," said Wofforth, almost cheerfully. His eyes were bright, as though he savored the idea. "About halfway around Pluto. We'd better start now, or they'll get tired of waiting." "They've gone, sir," Corbett growled before Jenks could gesture him to silence. He was beefy, slit-eyed. "We saw the jets going sunward this morning."