“Get inside, and lock the door,” he urged. “Make it snappy—before some one else drifts along.”
“Not by myself,” Joan protested quickly, sensing that in some miraculous manner Epworth and his friend had escaped death in the storeroom. “You and Billy must come in also.”
“Michael Strauss, the guard who is with us, must also come.”
Billy and Michael entered the room while Epworth guarded Toplinsky with his gun. Just as Michael disappeared Toplinsky came around. He had been knocked a little silly but was not totally out—just enough to permit Billy and Michael to get into Joan’s room without being discovered.
“Not a move! Not a whimper!” Epworth thundered when he discovered that Toplinsky was coming back to the world. “There is not going to be a loud noise.”
“Ah, ha, so you would threaten again,” Toplinsky shouted. “Ho, comrades, this way.”
The scientist was demonstrating that he was a man without fear.
Epworth did not wait for the guards to appear, and from natural kind heartedness did not strike the giant with the gun. Instead he slipped into Joan’s room, and slammed and locked the door.
“So far so good,” he murmured. “Now if they do not shut off the supply of air.”
“If he does that,” Michael explained, “we can knock a hole in the door, and get air from the outside. The ship is constructed so that the air is always inside of the companionway.”
“Fine and dandy,” Billy grinned in high good humor. “We are all dressed up and on our way.”
“On our way,” Joan interposed, “but while we are traveling what will we eat? I am already hungry.”
The three Americans looked at each other in dismay.
Without speaking his thoughts, Michael stepped to the side of the room, and shoved a hidden panel aside, exposing to the view of his companions a small room containing a lavatory and supplies. Thrusting a plug in the white bowl he turned on a faucet and filled the bowl with water.
“I did that,” he explained, “as a precaution in case the general turns the water supply off of this apartment. It would necessitate considerable work and a general overhauling but it is possible to stop the water. With this bowl full we will have enough to drink until we get to the moon—provided, of course, Toplinsky gets there in the time he has allowed for the trip. But as for eats I am afraid that we will have to get outside occasionally. My brother is the cook, and if I could get out to the kitchen we could get a supply of edibles without Toplinsky getting much too wise.”