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"Navigation, not astrogation, Astro," said Roger. "Like the ancient sailors used on the oceans back on Earth hundreds of years ago. Only thing is, I'll have to work up the logarithms by hand, instead of using the computer. Might be a little rough, but it'll be close enough for what we want."

The three cadets finished the remaining sandwiches and then picked their way back through the ship to the control deck. There, they rummaged through the pile of broken and shattered instruments.

"If we could find just one tube that hasn't been damaged, I think I might be able to rig up some sort of one-lung communications set," said Roger. "It might have enough range to get a message to the nearest atmosphere booster station."

"Nothing but a pile of junk here, Roger," said Tom. "We might find something on the radar deck."

The three members of the Polaris unit climbed over the rubble and made their way to the radar deck, and started their search for an undamaged tube. After forty-five minutes of searching, Roger stood up in disgust.

"Nothing!" he said sourly.

"That kills any hope of getting a message out," said Tom.

"By the craters of Luna," said Astro, wiping his forehead. "I didn't notice it before, but it's getting hotter here than on the power deck on a trip to Mercury!"

"Do we have any flares?" asked Roger.

"Naw. Al James used them all," answered Tom.

"That does it," said Roger. "In another couple of hours, when and if anyone shows up, all they'll find is three space cadets fried on the half shell of a spaceship!"

"Listen, Roger," said Tom, "as soon as we fail to check in, the whole Mars Solar Guard fleet will be out looking for us. Our last report will show them we were heading in this direction. It won't take Captain Strong long to figure out that we might have run out of fuel, and, with that skid mark in the sand trailing back for twenty miles, all we have to do is stick with the ship and wait for them to show up!"

"What's that?" asked Astro sharply.

From a distance, the three cadets could hear a low moaning and wailing. They rushed to the crystal port and looked out on the endless miles of brown sand, stretching as far as the horizon and meeting the cloudless blue sky. Shimmering in the heat, the New Sahara desert of Mars was just beginning to warm up for the day under the bleaching sun. The thin atmosphere offered little protection against the blazing heat rays.

"Nothing but sand," said Tom. "Maybe something is still hot on the power deck." He looked at Astro.

"I checked it before I came topside," said Astro. "I've heard that noise before. It can only mean one thing."

"What's that?" asked Roger.

Astro turned quickly and walked to the opposite side of the littered control deck. He pushed a pile of junk out of the way for a clear view of the outside.

"There's your answer," said Astro, pointing at the port.

"By the rings of Saturn, look at that!" cried Tom.

"Yeah," said Roger, "black as the fingernails of a Titan miner!"

"That's a sandstorm," Astro said finally. "It blows as long as a week and can pile up sand for two hundred feet. Sometimes the velocity reaches as much as a hundred and sixty miles an hour. Once, in the south, we got caught in one, and it was so bad we had to blast off. And it took all the power we had to do it!"

The three cadets stood transfixed as they gazed through the crystal port at the oncoming storm. The tremendous black cloud rolled toward the spaceship in huge folds that billowed upward and back in three-thousand-foot waves. The roar and wail of the wind grew louder, rising in pitch until it was a shrill scream.

"We'd better get down to the power deck," said Tom, "and take some oxygen bottles along with us, just in case. Astro, bring the rest of the Martian water and you grab several of those containers of food, Roger. We might be holed in for a long time."

"Why go down to the power deck?" asked Roger.

"There's a huge hole in the upper part of the ship's hull. That sand will come in here by the ton and there's nothing to