雑誌2
which might just be the heads of bolts.Then they turned to the broken robot, dismantled its remains, until they were equipped with pieces of metal to force those heads. It was slow, disheartening work. Once Travis went back to the ship to gather up the containers of the jelly which had poisoned him during the testing of the supplies. They smeared the stuff in and around the stubborn knobs, hoping it would lubricate and loosen, while they pounded and prodded. But their efforts were encouraged when the first bolt yielded, and Renfry used blistered fingers to work it free. And that small success gave a spurt to their labors.
It was nightfall and they were working mainly by touch when Ashe’s bolt came free—the second one.
“This is it for now,” he told them. “We can’t rig any sort of light in here and there’s no use in trying to free the rest in the dark. I’ve hit my fingers more than this blasted thing for the past half hour.”
“Time may be running out on the journey tape,” Ross answered tightly. He was putting into words one of the two fears which grinned over their shoulders during all those hours of punishing labor.
“Well, we aren’t going to lift without fuel.” With a sharp exclamation and a hand to his back, Ashe stood up. “And we can’t work on in the dark without rest or food. Those things we know—the rest we’re just guessing at.”
So they stumbled back to the ship, realizing only when they stopped the battle with the stubborn casing how deeply tired they were. Travis knew that Ashe was right. They could not hope to lick the problem by driving their bodies past the point of human endurance.
They ate more than the proper rations for the meal, wavered to their bunks and collapsed, drunk with fatigue. And Travis was still stiff in the morning. No healing jelly had soothed him. He awakened to Ross’s shaking and blinked foggily up at the other’s thin face.
“Back