"Well, not exactly," I chuckled. "Though things may be a trifle hot for a while." For I had seen the stuff Biggs had snaggled from the supply room, and I had also watched him sneaking out through the airlock to the Saturn's hull. I had a pretty fair idea what was going to happen, but I figured it was his pigeon, and I didn't want to upset the Bostons.
So that was all till the next day. But the next day everything happened at once.
To begin with, when I tried to make my daily contact with the transmitting station on Luna I couldn't coax so much as a squeak out of my radio apparatus. It was as lifeless as a Venusian swamp-snake on Pluto. I sweated and swore and got under the banks to find the trouble, but everything seemed to be O.Q. Wiring, rheos, ampies, all were jake. But the radio wouldn't rade. It just hissed and spluttered and murmured as feebly as a college girl in a parked car. The trouble was, I finally discovered, it wasn't getting any juice. Nary a bit!
Meanwhile, Dick Todd audioed me from the bridge. He fumed, "Sparks, for Pete's sake tell Garrity to turn down the thermoes! It's getting hot up here!"
Which sentiment I could personally double in spades. Because it was getting hot in my turret, too. My shirt was a dishrag, and my forehead was leaking like a rented rowboat.
So I called Garrity, but the Chief Engineer spoke up before I could ease a word in edgewise.
"Is thot you, Sparrrks?" he bellowed angrily. "It's aboot time ye were gettin' in tooch wi' me! Whut the de'il's the motter oop therrre? Yon contrrrol-turrret is michty nigh stewin' us in oor oon grrravy! Turrn off the heat!"
Well, I'm not dumb. Not too dumb, anyway. Two plus two equals Lancelot Biggs. That's why, when Capt. Hanson and Diane wilted into my turret a few minutes later, looking like a brace of parboiled lobsters, I just grinned at them.
Hanson's eyes were haggard with despair. He wailed, "Sparks—this awful heat! You know what's causin' it? It's because we're gettin' too close to the Sun, that's what! You told me Lancelot had everything under control. Where is he?"