The young captain reached the outer edge of his search perimeter, turned the small ship into a long-sweeping curve, and flipped on the audioceiver.
"Attention! Attention! Jet boat one to jet boat two! Come in, Astro!"
Across the wide abyss of space that separated the two men, Astro heard his skipper's voice crackle in his headphones.
"Astro here, sir," he replied.
"I'm beginning my sweep, Astro. Any luck?"
"Not a thing, sir."
"All right. Let's go, and keep a sharp eye out."
"Aye, aye, sir," replied Astro. He could not keep the worry out of his voice, and Strong, many miles away, nodded in silent agreement with Astro's feelings.
The Avenger had long since disappeared and Tom was left alone in space in the tiny jet boat. To conserve his oxygen supply, the curly-haired cadet had set the controls of his boat on a steady orbit around one of the larger asteroids and lay down quietly on the deck. One of the first lessons he had learned at Space Academy was, during an emergency in space when oxygen was low, to lie down and breath as slowly as possible. And, if possible, to go to sleep. Sleep, under such conditions, served two purposes. While relaxed in sleep, the body used less oxygen and should help fail to arrive, the victim would slip into a suffocating unconsciousness, not knowing if and when death took the place of life.