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Astro and Roger turned to look at the spaceship. Instead of seeing the ship, they saw a small mountain of sand, well over a hundred feet high. They walked around it and soon discovered that the window port in the control deck had been the only possible way out.

"Call it what you want," said Roger, "but I think it's just plain dumb luck that we were able to get out!" He eyed the mound of sand. Unless one knew there was a spaceship beneath it, it would have been impossible to distinguish it from the rest of the desert.

"We're not in the clear yet!" commented Astro grimly. "It would take a hundred men at least a week to clear away enough of that sand so search parties could recognize it." He glanced toward the horizon. "There isn't anything but sand here, fellows, sand that stretches for a thousand miles in every direction."

"And we've got to walk it," said Tom.

"Either that or sit here and die of thirst," said Roger.

"Any canals around here, Tom?" asked Astro softly.

"There better be," replied Tom thoughtfully. He turned to Roger. "If you can estimate our position, Roger, I'll go back inside and see if I can find a chart to plot it on. That way, we might get a direction to start on at least."

Astro glanced up at the pale-blue sky. "It's going to be a hot day," he said softly, looking out over the flat plain of the desert, "an awful hot day!"

CHAPTER 20

"Got everything we need?" asked Tom.

"Everything we'll need—and about all we can safely carry without weighing ourselves down too much," answered Roger. "Enough food for a week, the rest of the Martian water, space goggles to protect our eyes from the sun and emergency lights for each of us."

"Not much to walk a hundred and fifty miles on," offered Astro. "Too bad the sand got in the galley and messed up the rest of that good food."

"We'll have plenty to get us by—if my calculations are right," said Tom. "One hundred and fifty-four miles to be exact."

"Exact only as far as my sun sight told me," said Roger.

"Do you think it's right?" asked Tom.

"I'll answer you this way," Roger replied. "I took that sight six times in a half hour and got a mean average on all of them that came out within a few miles of each other. If I'm wrong, I'm very wrong, but if I'm right, we're within three to five miles of the position I gave you."

"That's good enough for me," said Astro. "If we're going out there"—he pointed toward the desert—"instead of sitting around here waiting for Strong or someone to show up, then I'd just as soon go now!"

"Wait a minute, fellas. Let's get this straight," said Tom. "We're all agreed that the odds on Captain Strong's showing up here before our water runs out are too great to risk it, and that we'll try to reach the nearest canal. The most important thing in this place is water. If we stay and the water we have runs out, we're done for. If we go, we might not reach the canal—and the chance of being spotted in the desert is even smaller than if we wait here at the ship." He paused. "So we move on?" He looked at the others. Astro nodded and looked at Roger, who bobbed his head in agreement.

"O.K., then," said Tom, "it's settled. We'll move at night when it's cool, and try to rest during the day when it's the hottest."

Roger looked up at the blazing white sphere in the pale-blue sky that burned down relentlessly. "I figure we have about six hours before she drops for the day," he said.

"Then let's go back inside the ship and get some rest," he said.

Without another word, the three cadets climbed back inside the ship and made places for themselves amid the littered deck of the control room. A hot wind blew out of the New Sahara through the open port like a breath of fire. Stripped to their shorts, the three boys lay around the deck unable to sleep, each thinking quietly about the task ahead, each remembering stories of the early pioneers who first reached Mars. In the mad rush for the uranium-yielding pitchblende, they had swarmed over the deserts toward the dwarf mountains by the thousands. Greedy,