“randy, wake up!”
ted was jostling his bedmate. randy opened sleepy eyes. he seemed to be unaffected by the reduced air pressure in the room. ted remembered that people vary in their reaction to this.
but when ted told him of the danger, randy bounced out of bed with no further prompting. ted switched on a light, and just as he was reading the air-pressure gauge on the wall, he heard a shrill whistle in the house. it was the air alarm that had gone off automatically. ted could see that the gauge read dangerously low.
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if he and randy and the others did not get into space suits in a hurry they would suffer serious consequences, one of which could be an attack of the “bends.” at worst, they would lose consciousness and die of anoxia—oxygen starvation.
even before ted could leave the room to rouse his mother and sister, both were standing at the boys’ door.
“we’ve got to get on space suits right away!” ted told them. “it looks like all the air pressure in the house is leaking out!”
they went immediately to the closet and began dragging out space dress in a mad flurry of fear. they pulled on the suits and helmets with haste and inflated the airtight outfits with fresh, pressurized oxygen from the small tanks on their backs.
“what do you think has happened to the air drum in the basement?” mrs. kenton asked her son over her helmet radio.
“i don’t know, but randy and i can go down there and see,” ted answered.
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the boys went downstairs, made a light, and walked over to the giant metal tank recessed in one of the walls. checking the gauges on the tank, ted turned to randy with a frown.
“there’s nothing wrong with this,” ted said.
“then where is the trouble?” randy asked.
(uncaptioned)
“there must be a leak somewhere in the house,” ted said. “we’ve got to find out.”
the boys went upstairs, and ted told his mother and sister that all of them should spread out and search the entire house for a leak. there were emergency sealers on hand to plug such a leak when it was found. the sealers were only temporary, but they would last until a full repair could be made by a repairman.
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each of them took a room and worked toward the middle of the house in their search, all lights having been turned on to give maximum illumination. the job was no easy one. even the slightest crack anywhere would be sufficient to cause the loss of pressure; it was just like a tire tube with a tiny puncture. ted was the first to finish his assigned area. he had found nothing. presently randy was through, then mrs. kenton, then jill. no one had found a leak anywhere, and the entire house had been covered.
“we must have missed it somewhere!” ted said. “we’ve wasted a whole hour!”
“the spare cartridges your father told us to have filled!” randy suddenly exclaimed. “we didn’t do it!”
“we forgot to in all the excitement after he left!” ted groaned.
“what’ll we do?” mrs. kenton asked, horrified. “in another hour or so, we’ll have used up the air in our suits!”
“can’t we refill our suit cartridges from the air drum downstairs?” jill asked.
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ted shook his head. “it’s not built that way.”
“then we must phone for help right away,” mrs. kenton said and rushed off to the radiophone.
in a few moments she was back. “they’ll send someone from town with spare cartridges right away,” she said, “but the man said we couldn’t get a repairman until morning to fix the leak. we’ll have to stay in our space suits if we don’t find the leak.”
“then let’s look for it again,” ted suggested.
once more they spread out all over the house, but this time they changed areas, so that if a mistake had been made before there was less chance of repeating it this time. they renewed their search, and it was not until all were through, again without having found the leak, that they realized that another hour had passed and the man with the spare cartridges had not shown up.
“the gauge in my helmet shows i’ve got only ten minutes of air left!” jill said.
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the others checked their gauges. all showed about ten minutes’ supply remaining. and there was no guarantee that the spare cartridges would arrive in that time.
just as mrs. kenton was going to the radiophone to call the air-supply center again, the phone buzzed and she answered it. after listening a moment, she turned to the children with a white face. “the man’s boat developed some trouble on the way. he says he can’t get here for fifteen minutes.”
“that’ll be too late!” jill cried.
mrs. kenton relayed this information and then said, “he wants to know if we have any neighbors close by we can borrow from.”
“i know it’ll take us more than ten minutes to get there and back!” ted answered, recalling the goodly distance to their closest neighbor.
mrs. kenton reported this and then, after listening for several seconds, she finally hung up. “he says that he’ll call back to headquarters and get an emergency truck here as quickly as possible. but he can’t be certain that it will get here in time either.”
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jill began sobbing. ted could see his mother’s lips trembling, but she was trying to be brave. mrs. kenton hugged jill to her, trying to calm her. ted saw randy fidgeting nervously. his own stomach felt queasy, and waves of terror went through him as he thought of the consequences of running out of air.
“come on, ted,” randy said finally to his friend, going from the hall into the living room. “we’ve just got to find that leak. if we can find it and plug it, the house pressure will rise to normal in a couple of minutes. i remember our own place doing that once before!”
“but we’ve gone over the whole place twice!” ted argued. “there’s no hope!”
“either we’ve passed the leak without seeing it,” randy went on, “or the leak is in a spot that we didn’t look at.”
“but there isn’t any place we didn’t look!” ted said. “of course, there are some places we couldn’t get to, like....”
they both thought of it at the same time. both boys’ eyes shifted to the drainage hole in the center of the plastic floor. here was one spot they had not been able to check. there was a grillwork molded into the plastic that was not easily removable.
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“suppose it is the drain hole, though,” randy said. “how can we find out?”
(uncaptioned)
“i’ve got it,” ted answered. “we’ll plug up the whole thing with a sealer, then check the room gauge to see if the pressure builds up.”
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a rubberoid sealing patch was taken out of its case and applied over the hole. they flattened it out tightly to assist the adhesive to cling fast in place. then all four of them went over to the wall to watch the pressure gauge.
a minute passed, and the needle failed to move even the tiniest bit. if this did not work, they knew they would surely be lost, because from where they stood, they could see outside for quite a distance, and still no one was coming.
over his radio, ted heard the nervous intake of breath from the others. he knew his hurried breathing must sound the same to them. actually, fear was hastening their doom because the more scared they were the more oxygen they used up.
ted stole a look at his helmet gauge. only three minutes of air remained! his eyes turned to the wall gauge again. he wished he could put out his hand and push it along toward normal. how desperately he wished for it to move!
ted thought he noticed a flicker of the needle. he blinked his eyes. yes, it had moved! the others had seen it too.
“it moved!” cried jill, almost hysterically.
“it certainly did!” her mother burst out. “i saw it!”
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the needle continued to climb toward normal. ted had nothing to say. he was so filled with relief that he was speechless for the moment.
they were all so concerned over the snaillike movement of that all-important needle that they paid no attention to the last few dwindling draughts of air in their suits. ted was the first to realize that his tank was empty. he began feeling that same lightheadedness he had experienced in his room.
“our suits,” he cried out. “pull them off! the room is just about normal!”
he unclipped his own helmet, then pulled it off and drank in precious gulps of fresh air. the others followed suit. soon the needle was vertical, indicating that normal pressure and air supply had been restored.
it was five minutes before a light came swiftly across the desert, moving in their direction. they heard the pop of an exhaust a moment later as a big-wheeled truck pulled up to a roaring stop outside.
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ted knew it must be the arrival of the emergency cartridges. but they had been five minutes late. a shudder shook him as he realized what a close call this had been. had they not found the leak when they did, none of them in the house would now be alive to greet the men.
