There was a pause while Astro and Roger considered this.
"That would mean," asked Roger, "that we'd be here when the reactor units go off, wouldn't it, sir?"
"That's right, Manning," said Connel, admitting to the danger. "Even if Junior were blasted out of the pull of the sun, we couldn't survive the explosions."
"Couldn't we blast off in the jet boat and then land after the explosions, sir?" asked Astro.
"Yes," admitted Connel, "we could do that. But the radioactivity would be so powerful we couldn't last more than a few days. We have no antiradiation gear. Not even food or water." He paused and scanned the sky. "No," he said in a surprisingly casual voice, "the only way we can get out of this is for Tom to come back and get us."
Shinny and Alfie came over and joined the group around the jet boat. No one said anything. There wasn't anything to say. Each of them felt the heat burning through his space suit. Each felt the same fear tugging at his throat. There was nothing to say. The Polaris was not to be seen; the sky was empty of everything except Alpha Centauri, the great burning mass of gases that once they had all seen only as a quiet twinkling star in the heavens, never dreaming that someday it would be pulling them relentlessly into its molten self.
Tom Corbett had a plan.
He sat at the control board of the great rocket cruiser, apparently watching the needles and gauges on the panel, but his mind was racing desperately. The two-hour deadline had just passed. The great solar clock had swung its red hand past the last second. Only a miracle could save the five men on Junior now. But Tom was not counting on miracles. He was counting on his plan.
"Keep this space wagon driving, Corbett!" ordered Loring from behind him. "Keep them rockets wide open!"
"Listen, Loring," pleaded Tom. "How about giving those fellows a break? If I don't pick them up, they'll all be killed."