"All right, wise guy. It's your funeral, too." They hopped down and, straining mightily, pushed the purple sphere to the top of the ramp.
"Will he go through the hatch?" cried Ed. "I can't see around him."
"Hope so," panted Archie, "or he's going to roll back on top of us. There he goes. We made it!"
The purple sphere vanished into the ship.
"What do we do now?" cried the excitable Bailey. "He may curl up and hibernate in there, for all you know. If he's not out in an hour, I'm going to shoot him!"
The odor of hot metal drifted out the emergency hatch. "He's schmooling around in there," said Ed.
"Leave him alone, Ed. Let's look around." Ed grumbled, but followed the retreating form of Archie Simms. They had strayed over a mile from the ship when the sun blasted out the end of another day.
"We'd better head back," said the cautious Bailey, turning around.
"Okay, but not that way. The ship's over there."
"Nuts, Arch; the ship's that way."