"I suspect they're probably a pair of pretty desperate criminals. Thugs are thugs in any language — and generally not very bright. Setting the automatic controls of the super-cee requires fine digital manipulation. They simply couldn't do it. They've come on sub-cee from wherever they swiped the ship. They didn't even know about the engine manuals, I suppose, or else they couldn't even set them. They hoped to get us to start the thing on automatics, and then planned to get rid of us somehow. It might have been a little tough unless they have weapons that would go through these suits easily. But we made if perfectly simple for them, bless our little hearts. We offered to walk right into their trap.
"As to where we go from here — I don't think they're worrying much about it. But we'd better. Probably the only atoms of free oxygen aboard are in these tanks of ours. Mine says" — he scanned the indicators beside the viewplate in front of his face — "about six hours to go."
"I've got eight," said Litchfield. "Maybe we could even it up some way."
"Mine's seven," said Hamilton, "and we can't even it up. There's no provision for decoupling the tanks in an atmosphere like this. Which is a neat piece of design."
"I've got four here," said Barnes. His voice was on the verge of cracking, it seemed to Joe. "I'll be seeing you, boys."
"Cut it out," said Joe uneasily. "We'll get out of here and have clam chowder for desert. Though I must admit the 'how' of doing so eludes me at the moment. Four hours — and they've souped this up to about eight cee, I'd judge — we'll be a long way from home."
They moved slowly about the room. There were two other chambers open to them, one on either side, but there was no exit. They decided that one contained the machinery for producing and circulating the foul nitrogen peroxide atmosphere. The other was a storage chamber for the heavy water used in the reactor.
There was a small store of tools, but none that would dent or burn the doors. Barnes and Hamilton had brought along their kits, but they held nothing that would help.
They sat down on rows of cannisters. Joe looked about at the blank-faced, monstrous-looking suits that housed his companions. They were silent, thinking that this was a stupid way of winding up. There was Barnes with only four hours of oxygen to go. They couldn't share theirs with him.
"Why couldn't we wreck the atmosphere plant?" asked Barnes suddenly. "Maybe we could even find a way to discharge it into space. That would fix those clamshells' little red wagon good."