"What do we do from noon until evening?" asked Astro.
"Aside from just sitting under this hunk of space cloth, I guess we'll come as close to being roasted alive as a human can get."
"You want to eat now?" asked Astro.
Tom and Roger laughed. "I'm not hungry, but you go ahead," said Tom. "I know that appetite of yours won't wait."
"I'm not too hungry either," said Roger. "Go ahead, you clobber-headed juice jockey."
Astro grinned sheepishly, and opening one of the containers of food, quickly wolfed down a breakfast of smoked Venusian fatfish.
Tom and Roger began spreading the space cloth on the sand that was already hot to the touch. Anchoring the four corners in the sand with the emergency lights and one of Tom's boots, they propped up the center with the food packs, one on top of the other. A crude tent was the result and both boys crawled in under, sprawling on the sand. Astro finished eating, lay down beside his two unit-mates, and in a moment the three cadets were sound asleep.
The sun climbed steadily over the desert while the Polaris unit slept. With each hour, the heat of the desert rose, climbing past the hundred mark, reaching one hundred and twenty, then one hundred and thirty-five degrees.
Tom woke up with a start. He felt as if he were inside a blazing furnace. He rolled over and saw Astro and Roger still asleep, sweat pouring off them in small rivulets. He started to wake them, but decided against it and just lay still under the thin sheet of space cloth that protected him from the sun. As light as the fabric square was, weighing no more than a pound, under the intense heat of the sun it felt like a woolen blanket where it touched him. Astro rolled over and opened his eyes.
"What time is it, Tom?"