Carefully, so not to exert himself and waste oxygen, he glided down with his gear to the aft section of the _Minnow's_ hull just forward of the tubes where the skin was thinnest. As he ignited the torch, he was aware of what a temptation it was to drain off all the oxygen contained in the power-pack into his own cylinder. Quickly he went ahead and applied the torch to the skin of the ship. Ballard glanced at his chronometer: An hour and a half to go. Good. Fifteen minutes would be long enough to tell whether the torch would cut through the skin or not. If it would, then he could use the rest of the time in cutting the hole. After the first five minutes he turned the nozzle away and examined the spot where it had been applied. Not a mark. Six minutes went by. Then seven, eight, nine-- Again he looked at the skin; still no change. Three more minutes went by. Ballard felt sweat break out on his face as he pulled the torch away for a third time. For a moment--his eyes still blinded by the glare--he could see nothing. His heart sank. Then he detected a faint red spot with a whitish center. _It was working._ Three more minutes and the hole would be started. He turned back the nozzle to the glowing spot. Then with dismay he watched the torch sputter and go dead. Frantically he pushed the activator button-- Stunned, he finally noticed that the power-pack read empty. Walton had nearly exhausted it on the blinker tower. Ballard glanced at his wrist. He still had an hour and fourteen minutes. He didn't smile at the stars this time as he went back up the hill. Things didn't seem ironic any more, merely dangerous. He loaded the heat-beam with its larger power-pack onto the equipment platform and slowly dragged it behind him down to the ship. An hour and two minutes left. He went to work adjusting the beam to its maximum intensity; then, moving it as close to the hull as possible, he turned it on full force. Time seemed to have stopped. Twice in one minute Ballard glanced at his wrist, expecting to see a lapse of ten or fifteen minutes. Only five minutes had dragged by; he now had just fifty-seven left. His spacesuit suddenly began reminding him of a coffin. With superhuman effort he jerked his thoughts away from suffocation and back to the job. Forty-five minutes to go. _The beam wasn't going to work._ The sudden realization cut into Ballard like a knife. He should have known that in the first place; a beam meant for plastic wasn't intense enough for the skin of a spaceship. * * * * * This time as Ballard once more climbed the hill, the stars seemed to be smiling at him. But not with friendliness. They seemed to smile _death_. He got the jackhammer all the way down to the ship before a devastating thought struck him. He'd forgotten that the hammer had a cracked 5R bit; it would fly to pieces on the diamond hardness of the hull.