"What's this all about, Manool?" demanded the captain, but Manool refused to answer.
"Can't talk too much, Captain," he whispered. "Got to hurry. If someone tries to come in farm before I get these boxes over here, this whole plan be shot. Don't you talk now, please."
Tarrant nodded his understanding and Manool started back for another box of tooth-powder. As he hunched his way along, he heard Tarrant say to Rogers, quite plainly: "Think he knows what he's doing, Ike?"
He smiled bitterly. It seemed impossible for anyone to expect anything important could be accomplished by little Manool Sarouk. Well, if things went right, he was certainly going to show them, this time.
In spite of his haste, and in spite of the fact that Rogers helped him after the third trip, it was some little time before Manool dropped down in the tank-room after that last box. He heaved a huge sigh of relief as he put it into the ventilator shaft, and turned to do the one thing left to do. This was the one job he hated, but it was the most important job of all. He went to his locker and got out a big bottle and poured liquid from it into every one of the tanks. He turned off a valve under each tank and took a hammer and beat the valve-handle into uselessness. Then, after checking to make sure he hadn't overlooked anything, he climbed into the tube and started pushing that last box of tooth-powder ahead of him.
At last he reached the mess-room again and handed down his box. He climbed down, himself, and had no more than landed when Tarrant was on him with a whispered, "Come on now, Manool, tell us what this is all about."
"Just a couple minutes more, Captain," Manool pleaded. "You think they can get through that door?"
"Not a chance," Rogers spoke up.
"That's fine. Maybe, then, you help me fix that ventilator, too." They put the grill back on the ventilator, and covered it by nailing boards from the table over it.
"By-'n'by, we make that air-tight," said Manool, and gave his next order. Yes, he was giving orders to the captain and the navigator now, and he was quite conscious that he was doing so.