Unconsciously he lengthened his stride for a few paces, and was reminded by his quickened breathing that he was wasting his scant oxygen supply. They already had tapped their original spare tanks, thankful for the lessened weight as they jettisoned the empty. Even with Palmer and Rodriguez' partly filled tanks they only had enough for a couple of days full time use. Since they had left the region of the whirlwinds, they had been able to experiment cautiously with leaving their faceplates open a few minutes at a time, even though the thin, oxygen-starved air caused their lungs to labor painfully.
Bradford was roused from his musings by an astonished exclamation from his companion. Down on his knees, Canham was babbling incoherently, "—green! It's green!"
Bradford knelt beside him in awestruck silence. A tiny growth scarcely large enough to be dignified with the title of shrub, here in this arid plain and undeniably—green! Canham touched it caressingly.
"Baby, I hope all your brothers and sisters and the rest of the kinfolk are just over the hill!"
Clambering to their feet, they set off, lumbering awkwardly in their heavy suits, breath coming in labored gasps to halt abruptly at the edge of a steep downward slope. Before them lay another belt of arid sand and beyond a ring of marshy, pool-dotted soil encircling a solid belt of vivid green—and faintly visible on the horizon, the glimmer of the shallow snowcap.
Canham gulped audibly. "If Cortez really wanted a thrill, he should have discovered this overgrown duckpond. The Pacific—phooey!"
Bradford slapped him on the back. "I feel like I could flap my wings and fly down! Last one in's a rotten egg...."
Laughing with almost hysterical relief, they ran, waddled and slid, heedless of bumps and oxygen wastage. They picked themselves up at the bottom, grinning sheepishly.
"If Space Authority could only see us now!" Canham chortled. "Let us now with due dignity take possession of our kingdom."