“Yeah, I liked the old gal,” Patch replied. “She may have survived a crash on the moon, but it’s a cinch she’s reached the end of her rope now.”
Garry cast a look around to see what sort of area they had come into. His eyes followed the downhill trail ahead that Katrinka would still be following had she not had her accident.
What he saw brought a gasp of astonishment from him, and a nervous tremor coursed through his body.
“Patch, look!” he shouted. “The Carefree! There’s the Carefree down there, half buried in moon dust!”
They rushed down the trail to get a closer look. The giant space ship was indeed buried half of her depth in pumice dust. The rear air lock was level with the ground, and extending from the air lock was a gangplank!
The boys moved up to the edge of the gangplank, looking it over in bafflement.
“Don’t tell me Katrinka put that down and walked out of the ship on it!” Patch challenged. “You can’t get me to believe that, Garry.”
“No, you’re right; she couldn’t possibly have done that on her own. She might have done it, Patch, but she would have had to be guided by an intelligent human brain.”
“Garry, what are you saying? Are you trying to say that Ben might have survived that crash and rigged up Katrinka so that she could go out looking for us? Why, that’s fantastic!”
“We’ll soon find out if it’s so fantastic,” Garry said. “The ship is nearly undamaged, as you can see.”