Wofforth winced. "Gone," he said. "That's right. I didn't stop to think. You said forty hours.... They couldn't wait that long. We're past opposition already, getting farther away all the time. They had to go, or they wouldn't have made it." He stood up uncertainly and reached for his ripped tunic. Corbett stepped over and helped him slide his uninjured arm into the right sleeve, then to fasten and drape the tunic over his splinted left arm and shoulder. "We'll just have to get back to Base Camp and wait," said Wofforth grimly. "Sir," said Jenks, "our radio is gone. I tried to patch it up, but it was gone. When they didn't get a signal, they must have thought--" "Nonsense!" Wofforth broke in. "They'll have left us supplies. They couldn't wait, signal or none. Our job is to get back, and stick it out there until they come for us." He sat at the control and began to write in the log book. Corbett and Jenks drifted together at the other end of the room. "You meat-head," snarled Jenks under his breath. "You knew he took the berth to Pluto because the first mate was a lady--Lya Stromminger." "He had to know they were gone," protested Corbett, equally fierce. "Not flat like you gave it. He came here to be with her. Now she's jetted away without him. How does a man feel when a woman's done that--" "Stop blathering, you two, and help me into my suit," called Wofforth, rising again. "We're going to rev up that sled engine and get out of here!" * * * * * Outside, the sled lay ready under the frigid sky. Wofforth tramped around it, leaned over and poked the load. "Too much," said his voice in their radios. "Keep the synthesizer, the tent, these two ration boxes. Wait, keep the crowbar and the hatchet. Dump the rest." "We travel that light, sir?" said Jenks doubtfully. "I've been figuring," said Wofforth. "We're on the far side of Pluto from Base Camp. That makes ten thousand miles, more or less. Pluto's day is nineteen hours and a minute or so, Earth time. We can travel only by what they humorously call daylight. And we'd better get there in ten days--a thousand miles every nine and a half hours--or maybe we won't get there at all." "How's that, sir?" asked Corbett. "The heaters in these suits," Wofforth reminded him. "Two hundred and forty hours of efficiency, and that's all. Well, it's noon. Let's take off." His voice shook. He was still weak. Jenks helped him sit on the two lashed ration boxes, and slung a mooring strap across his knees. Then Jenks took the steering boom, and Corbett bent to start the engine. When the arclight sun set in the west, they had traveled more than four hours over country not too rugged to slow them much. Darkness closed in fast while Jenks and Corbett pitched the pyramidal tent of metal foil and clamped it down solidly. They spread and zipped in the ground fabric, set up lights and heater inside, and began to pipe in thawed gases from the drifts outside.