"About as doubtful as the radio--I think that I could build a pair of matched-frequency auto-dirigible transmitter and receptor units, such as are necessary for space-ships fed by stationary power-plants, but after I got them built, they'd take us less than half way there. Then we'd have only what power we can carry, and I hate even to think of what probably would happen to us. We'd certainly have to drift for months before we could get close enough to any of our plants to radio for help, and we'd be taking awful chances. You see, we'd have to take a very peculiar orbit, and if we should miss connections passing the inner planets, what the sun would do to us at the closest point and where what's left of us would go on the back-swing, would be just too bad! Besides, if we can get hold of the _Sirius_, they'll come loaded for bear, and we may be able to do something about the rest of the folks out here." * * * * * "Oh!" breathed the girl. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could! I thought, of course, they'd all be...." her voice died away. "Not necessarily--there's always a chance. That's why I'm trying the ultra-radio first. However, either course will take lots of power, so the first thing I've got to do is to build a power plant. I'm going to run a penstock up those falls, and put in a turbine, driving a high-tension alternator. Then, while I'm trying to build the ultra-radio, I'll be charging our accumulators, so that no time will be lost in case the radio fails. If it does fail--and remember I'm not counting on its working--of course I'll tackle the transmission and receptor units before we start out to drift it." "You say it easy, Steve, but how can you build all those things, with nothing to work with?" "It's going to be a real job--I'm not try to kid you into thinking it'll be either easy or quick. Here's the way everything will go. Before I can even lay the first length of the penstock, I've got to have the pipe--to make which I've got to have flat steel--to get which I'll have to cut some of the partitions out of this ship of ours--to do which I'll have to have a cutting torch--to make which I'll have to forge nozzles out of block metal and to run which I'll have to have gas--to get which I'll have to mine coal and build a gas-plant--to do which...." "Good heavens, Steve, are you going back to the Stone Age? I never thought of half those things. Why, it's impossible!"