An hour and two minutes left. He went to work adjusting the beam to its maximum intensity; then, moving it as close to the hull as possible, he turned it on full force.
Time seemed to have stopped. Twice in one minute Ballard glanced at his wrist, expecting to see a lapse of ten or fifteen minutes. Only five minutes had dragged by; he now had just fifty-seven left. His spacesuit suddenly began reminding him of a coffin. With superhuman effort he jerked his thoughts away from suffocation and back to the job.
Forty-five minutes to go. The beam wasn't going to work. The sudden realization cut into Ballard like a knife. He should have known that in the first place; a beam meant for plastic wasn't intense enough for the skin of a spaceship.
This time as Ballard once more climbed the hill, the stars seemed to be smiling at him. But not with friendliness. They seemed to smile death.
He got the jackhammer all the way down to the ship before a devastating thought struck him. He'd forgotten that the hammer had a cracked 5R bit; it would fly to pieces on the diamond hardness of the hull.
He sat down, stunned at the fact that he'd run out of things to try. The ship lay before him like some impenetrable fortress. Several precious minutes dragged by before Ballard could again calm his spinning brain. He still had forty minutes. Had he overlooked any other possibility of getting into the ship?
Slowly he walked around the Minnow, concentrating as he'd never concentrated before. Then as he stepped in front of the drive tubes something clicked: The main tube was large enough for him to crawl into. If he could remove the recoil plate and hydraulic mechanism, he might be able to burn a hole through the ordinary steel bulkhead beyond.
Half-bounding and half-running, he returned from the hill with the tool box. After selecting several likely wrench sizes, he grabbed a flashlight and crawled up the tube. He wasted five minutes unscrewing the first bolt holding the plate in place. The second bolt was so corroded he couldn't budge it. Cursing he crawled out and dragged in the jackhammer, hoping the cracked 5R bit would hold until the bolt was knocked out.
It almost held, flying to pieces just as there was a quarter inch to go. Frantically he somehow managed to knock the remainder out with the chuck of the hammer. But it had taken Ballard five more minutes. Only twenty-five left.