“Patch!” Garry shouted. “Look what!”
Patch came clicking over in his magnetic shoes. “Hey, they’re instruments for running this crate! Why didn’t we think of looking for them before?” he cried.
“Probably because we don’t know how to operate them,” Garry replied.
There was a half-circle steering wheel that pulled out, and the boys were sure what this was for.
“Garry,” Patch said happily, “the steering wheel—that may be all that we’ll need! Since the ship is moving under its own power, all we have to do is turn her around and head back for the space station. We can keep circling it until one of the ships from the station intercepts us!”
Garry tried the wheel. It was locked tight.
“It’s not that easy, Patch,” he said. “First we’ve got to find how to unlock the wheel.”
“That ought not to be hard,” Patch replied. “A button or switch....”
They both began carefully examining the steering column and wheel, but did not find anything that would release the wheel. Then they went over the console panel very closely. They found switches and levers that could not be identified, but they decided to try them anyhow and see what they controlled.
They got no result at first, but, when the fourth switch was thrown, the console lighted up and the ship began to throb with a new life.