Morrow unbuckled his seat-belt, rose, and strode back to the steps without a word.
It took them a week to pull out the rear bulk-heads and completely redesign and reconstruct the tail-jet assembly. When they finished, they tried it again. They got an air-speed of seventy m.p.h. at low level, but it dropped to twenty m.p.h. as they gained altitude. The tail-jets didn't just make a whooming sound, this time—they made a rumbling, burbling sound.
They landed and pulled the ship into the workshop, closing the big doors after it. Morrow walked over to the workbench, pulled off his gloves, and threw them down.
"It's no good!" he said harshly. "That jet chamber just isn't shaped right—there's too much turbulence in it, breaks up the jet-blast."
"We'll rebuild it again," Smitty said, with a shrug in his voice.
Morrow wheeled and glared at him, red-eyed. "We aren't jet engineers, Smitty. We're building by guesswork! We can redesign that jet chamber a thousand times and never get the right shape!"
Smitty moved on to the stove and began stoking up the red coals, stacking wood on them. "She does seventy per hour up to seven thousand feet," he said dully. "If that's the best we can do, we'll just have to be satisfied with it."
"It's not good enough!" Morrow protested. "She has to have more speed, Smitty. She'll be at the mercy of every wind that comes along if she hasn't, weightless as she is!" He smacked his fist into his palm, decisively. "We've got to get help, chum."
"Help?" Smitty turned and looked at him, querulously. "Where can we get help?"
"A jet engineer," Morrow snapped irritably. "That's the only one who can help us. We've got to find one—" He broke off, suddenly thoughtful.