"Maybe there's something here that we could pour into the atmosphere system. Let's have a look anyway. Tear open some of these cans."
He glanced at the clock face in the helmet. A full half hour had passed since the doors had first been clamped. Three and a half to go — for Barnes.
Litchfield held up an open can. He had a steel claw full of mushy substance. "Must be food. Do you know what they eat?"
"No. Keep going and keep thinking."
The two technicians were halfheartedly obeying Joe's instructions, but they had no enthusiasm for the task. They'd given up completely, he thought. He and Litchfield would have to carry them.
He kept on, opening boxes and storage cabinets, trying to identify the substances encountered, his mind constantly examining and rejecting each item for possible means of attracting the captors to the locked chamber.
He wandered on into the chamber where the huge tanks of heavy water were stored.
"We haven't found a supply of drinking water, have we?" said Joe.
"All food as far as I can tell here," said Litchfield.
"On a planet with an atmosphere of nitrogen peroxide I wonder if there wouldn't be an absence of open bodies of water. Perhaps the metabolism of any life there would have to exist without water."