They completed all of one side before lunch, then returned to the ship. They found their mother had opened both lockdoors while they were gone, and fresh, crisp, though warm, air was circulating through the ship, blowing out the old chemically pure yet "stale-feeling" air their purifiers had been re-circulating for so long.
Their father was awake, but still so weak he was making no attempt to sit fully up in bed, although his wife had slipped an extra pillow beneath his head.
"Ho, fellows!" he greeted the boys as they came into the bunkroom. "How's the job coming?"
"Just fine, Pop."
"We have the townsite all laid out, and now we're checking to make sure the lines are straight," Jak told him.
He frowned a bit. "How did you manage it? Neither of you is a surveyor. Or have you learned how to do that, too?"
"I think I've figured out the theodolite well enough to tell if our lines are straight, and that's what we're using now," Jon continued. "I can't measure distances with it, though."
Jak explained more in detail how they had measured the blocks and street widths, and rechecked them all.
"I can't see why it won't pass," their father said when they finished. "Probably no one will ever check it, unless they actually use the site when the colonists come. It shows we were landed here long enough to do the work, and that's the important thing. What about the rest of the mapping?"
"I'll go get the papers." Jon ran out, to return in a few minutes with the book of reports, and the rolls of film and prints they had made on all the planets and satellites. "You can check these as you feel up to it, Pop, and anything that looks wrong we can go back and re-check or do over."