for. The
rest was promissory notes and grubstake shares. When he was broke, which
was usually, he used his tractor to haul uranium ore and metallic sodium
from the mines at Potter's dike to Williamson Town, where the rockets
landed.

When he was flush, he would prospect for a couple of weeks. Once he
followed a stampede to Yellow Crater, where he thought for a while that
he had a fortune in chromium. The chromite petered out in a month and a
half, and he was lucky to break even.

Evans was about three hundred miles east of Williamson Town, the site of
the first landing on the Moon.

Evans was due back at Williamson Town at about sunset, that is, in about
sixteen days. When he saw the wrecked turbine, he knew that he wouldn't
make it. By careful rationing, he could probably stretch his food out to
more than a month. His drinking water--kept separate from the water in
the reactor--might conceivably last just as long. But his oxygen was too
carefully measured; there was a four-day reserve. By diligent
conservation, he might make it last an extra day. Four days
reserve--plus one is five--plus sixteen days normal supply equals
twenty-one days to live.

In seventeen days he might be missed, but in seventeen days it would be
dark again, and the search for him, if it ever began, could not begin
for thirteen more days. At the earliest it would be eight days too late.

* * * * *

"Well, man, 'tis a fine spot you're in now," he told himself.

"Let's find out how bad it is indeed," he answered. He reached for the
light switch and tried to turn it on. The switch was already in the "on"
position.

"Batteries must be dead," he told himself.

"What batteries?" he asked. "There're no batteries in here, the power
comes from the generator."

"Why isn't the generator working, man?" he asked.

He thought this one out carefully. The generator was not turned by the
main turbine, but by a small reciprocating engine. The steam, however,
came from the same boiler. And the boiler, of course, had emptied itself
through the hole in the turbine. And the condenser, of course--

"The condenser!" he shouted.

He fumbled for a while, until he found a small flashlight. By the light
of this, he reinspected the steam system, and found about three gallons
of water frozen in the condenser. The condenser, like all condensers,
was a device to convert steam into water, so that it could be reused in
the boiler. Thi