On the Trail of the Space Pirates_ A Tom Corbett Space Cadet Adventure - Carey Rockwell [73]
"I—I—don't know what happened," he said slowly. "Everything started swimming and then went black."
"You fainted," said Tom simply.
"What time is it?" asked Astro.
"Sun should be dropping soon now, in another couple of hours."
They were silent again. The sun continued its journey across the sky and at last began to slip behind the horizon. When the last red rays stretched across the sandy desert, the three cadets folded back the space-cloth covering and stood up. A soft evening breeze sprang up, refreshing them a little, and though none of them was hungry, each boy ate a light meal.
Tom opened the container of water again and measured out about an ounce apiece.
"Moisten your tongue, and sip it slowly," ordered Tom.
Roger and Astro took their share of the water and dipped fingers in it, wiping their lips and eyelids. They continued to do this until finally, no longer able to resist, they took the precious water and swished it around in their mouths before swallowing it.
They folded the space cloth, shouldered their packs, and after Tom had checked the compass, started their long march toward their plotted destination.
They had survived their first twenty-four hours in the barren wastes of the New Sahara, with each boy acutely aware that there was at least a week more of the same in front of them. The sky blackened, and soon after Deimos rose and started climbing across the dark sky.
CHAPTER 21
"How much water left?" asked Astro thickly.
"Enough for one more drink apiece," Tom replied.
"And then what happens?" mumbled Roger through his cracked lips.
"You know what will happen, Roger—you know and I know and Tom knows," muttered Astro grimly.
For eight days they had been struggling across the blistering shifting sands, walking by night, sweltering under the thin space cloth during the day. Their tongues were swollen. Scraggly beards covered their chins and jaws. Roger's lips were cracked. The back of Tom's neck had suffered ten minutes of direct sun and turned into a large swollen blister. Only Astro appeared to be bearing up under the ordeal. There was no sign of their being close to the canal.
"Wanta try marching during the day?" asked Astro. They had broken camp on the evening of the eighth day and were preparing to move on into the never-changing desert.
"If we don't hit the canal sometime during the night, there might be a chance it's close enough to reach in a couple of hours," replied Tom. "Either that, or we've miscalculated altogether."
"How about you, Roger?" asked Astro.
"Whatever you guys decide, I'll be right in back of you." Roger had grown steadily weaker during the last three days and found it difficult to sleep during the hours of rest.
"Then we'll keep marching tomorrow," said Astro.
"Let's move out," said Tom. Roger and Astro shouldered the remaining slender food packs, with Tom carrying the water and space cloth, and they started out into the rapidly darkening desert.
Once again, as on the previous eight nights, the little moon, Deimos, swung across the sky, casting dim shadows ahead of the three marching boys. Tom found it necessary to look at the compass more often. He couldn't trust his sense of direction as much as he had earlier. Once, he had gone for two hours in a direction that was fifty degrees off course. The rest stops also were more frequent now, with each boy throwing his pack to the ground and lying flat on his back, to enjoy the cool breeze that never failed to soothe their scorched faces.
When the sun rose out of the desert on the morning of the ninth day, they stopped, ate a light breakfast of preserved figs, divided the juice evenly among them, and, ripping the space cloth into three sections, wrapped it around themselves like Arabs and continued to walk.
By noon, with the sun directly overhead, they were staggering. At two-thirty the sun and the heat were so overpowering that they stopped