Heinlein, Robert A - Space Cadet by Space Cadet

Author:Space Cadet
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2012-10-20T16:15:20+00:00

"Ask her how she expects to get it up out of there, Oz," Tex suggested. Oscar did so.

"Tell thy impatient daughter to chase her fish and I will chase mine."

"No need for her to be rude about it," Tex complained. "What did she say?" inquired the mother-of-many.

" 'She' thanks thee for the lesson," Oscar prevaricated. The Little People worked rapidly. It was evident that the ship would be entirely free before the day was far advanced-and clean as well; the outside shone now and a steady procession of them had been pouring in and out of the door of the ship, bearing cakes of jellied mud. In the last hour the routine had changed; the little workers came out bearing distended bladders. The clean-up squad was J at work. f

Oscar watched them approvingly. "I told you they would 3 lick it clean." :'

Matt looked thoughtful. "I'm worried, Oz, about the pos- ; sibility that they will mess with something on the control board and get into trouble."

"Why? The leads are all sealed away. They can't hurt anything. You locked the board when you left it, didn't you?"

"Yes, of course."'

"Anyhow, they can't fire the jet when she's in that attitude even if you hadn't."

"That's true. Still, I'm worried."

"Well, let's take a look, then. I want to talk to the fore- '. man in any case. I've got an idea."

"What idea?" asked Tex.

"Maybe they can get her upright in the pit. It seems to me we could take off from there and never have to drag j her out. Might save several days." They went down the| ramp and located the Venerian in charge, then Matt and 1 Tex went inside the ship while Oscar stayed to talk over his idea.

It was hard to believe that the pilot room had lately; been choked with filthy, yellow mud. A few amphibians'

were still working in the after end of the room; elsewhere the compartment was clean.

Matt climbed to the pilot's seat and started inspecting. He noticed first that the sponge-rubber eyeguards for the infra-red viewer were missing. This was not important, but he wondered what had happened to them-did the little folk have the vice of souvenir snitching? He filed away the suspicion, and attempted a dry run on the controls, without firing the jet.

Nothing operated-nothing at all.

He looked the board over more carefully. To a casual inspection it was clean, bright, in perfect order, but he now perceived many little pits and specks. He dug at one with a finger nail, something came away. He worked at it a bit more and produced a tiny hole into the interior of the control board. It gave him a sick feeling at the pit of his stomach. "Say, Tex-come here a minute. I've got something."

"You think you've got something," Tex answered in muffled tones. "Wait till you've seen this."

He found Tex with a wrench in his hand and a cover plate off the gyro compartment. "After what happened to the Gary I decided to check this first.

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