e slight
weight seemed to have tripled.

After twenty hours, the power of the chemical batteries began to wane.
David Lester, hovering close to Helen, muttered to himself, or to her.
Rodan, still marching quite strongly, retreated into an unreality of his
own.

"Have another scotch on the rocks, Ralph," he said genially. "I knew I'd
make it... Nobel Prize... Oh, you have no idea what I went through...
Most of my staff dead... But it's over, now, Ralph... Another good,
stomach-warming scotch..."

"Damn, loony squirt's crackin' up!" Dutch screamed suddenly.

He began to run, promptly falling into a volcanic crack, the bottom of
which couldn't even be found with the light. Fortunately he wasn't
wearing the nuclear battery just then.

Somehow, Lester remained cool. It was as if, with everyone else scared,
too, and nobody to show superior courage, he had found himself.

The batteries waned further. The cold of the inky lunar night--much
worse than that of interplanetary space, where there is practically
always sunshine, began to bite through the insulation of the Archers,
and power couldn't be wasted on the heating coils.

Worst was the need for rest. They all lay down at last, except Frank
Nelsen, who moved around, clipping the nuclear battery into one Archer
for a minute, to freshen the air, and then into another. It was the only
trick--or gimmick--that they found. After a while, Lester made the
rounds, while Nelsen rested.

They got a few more miles by swapping batteries in quick succession. But
the accumulating carbon dioxide in the air they breathed, made them
sleepier. They had to sit down, then lie down. Frank figured that they
had come something over a quarter of the eight hundred miles. This was
about the end of Frank Nelsen, would-be Planet Strapper from Jarviston,
Minnesota. Well--his coffin would be a common one--an Archer Five...
Somehow, he thought of a line from Kipling: "If you can keep your head
when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you..."

He tried to clip the nuclear battery back in Helen's armor, again. She
_might_ make the remaining five hundred-something miles, alone...! He
just barely managed to accomplish it... There was still a little juice,
from his chemical cell, feeding his helmet phone... Now, he thought he
heard someone singing raucously one of those improvised doggerel songs
of spacemen and Moonmen... Folklore, almost...

"If this goddam dust

Just holds its crus