table and growled at Brett. "No use messing with this thing any longer.
I don't know what makes it tick, so I can't find the trouble. We need
new equipment."

"It'll take at least two weeks to get new equipment the way things are
going here at Titan," replied Brett.

"Well, there's no use hanging around here if we can't dig any more of
the stuff out, and I ain't going behind that lead shield unless I got a
machine that tells me it's safe."

"I've been thinking about Manning," said Brett.

"What about him?"

"Suppose we move the stuff we've already mined to the hide-out, and take
this equipment along too. He can repair it out there. We can turn off
the oxygen that we're sucking off from the Solar Guard pumps, and by the
time we get back here, the old satellite will be back to normal. Then,
with the equipment repaired and Olympia back to normal, we can really
begin operations."

Quent nodded quickly. "Good idea. Come on. Let's get this stuff aboard
the ship."

On the balcony Tom and Astro looked at each other.

"They're responsible for what's happened here on Titan!" whispered Tom.
"They have been sucking off oxygen from the main pumps supporting the
force field."