"Now to business-I am very reluctant to leave the Pathfinder where she is. Aside from sentimental reasons she is a ship of the Patrol and she is worth a good many millions. I think we can repair her and take her back."
XIII LONG WAY HOME !
MATT TOOK PART in the rebuilding of the inner door of the Pathfinder's airlock and the checks for airtightness, all under the careful eye of the chief engineer. There was little
other damage inside the ship. The rock, or meteor, that had punched the gaping hole in the inner door had expended most of its force in so doing; an inner bulkhead had to be patched and a few dents smoothed. The outer, armored door was quite untouched; it was clear that the invader, by bad chance, had come in while the outer door was standing open.
The plants in the air-conditioner had died for lack of attention and carbon dioxide. Matt took over the job while the others helped in the almost endless chores of checking every circuit, every instrument, every gadget necessary to the ship's functioning. It was a job which should have been done at a repair base and could not have been accomplished if there had actually been much wrong.
Oscar and Matt squeezed an hour out of sleep to explore 1987-CD, a job that mixed mountain climbing with suit-jet work. The asteroid had a gravitational field, of course, but even a mass the size of a small .mountain is negligible compared with that of a-planet. They simply could not feel it; muscles used to opposing the tenacious pull of robust Terra made nothing of the frail pull of 1987-CD. ' At last the Pathfinder was cast loose and her drive tested by a scratch crew consisting of Captain Yancey at the controls and Lieutenant Novak in the power room. The Aes Triplex lay off a few miles, waited until she blasted her jet for a few seconds, then joined her. The two ships tied together and Captain Yancey and the chief engineer came back into the Aes Triplex.
"She's all yours, Hartley," he announced. "Test her yourself, then take over when you are ready."
"If she suits you she suits me. With your permission, sir, I'll transfer my crew now."
"So? Very well, Captain-take command and carry out your orders. Log it, Mister," Captain Yancey added, over his shoulder to the officer of the watch.
Thirty minutes later the split crew passed out through the airlock of the Aes Triplex and into the airlock of the other. P.R.S. Pathfinder was back in commission.