The Planet Mappers by E. Everett Evans (books for new readers .TXT) 📕

Nearly four hours till sundown. We can start planning today, then get busy in the morning."

Their mother came in just then. "I thought it felt like we had landed. What are you going to do here?" She glanced out of the port.

"We have to lay out a townsite," Jon answered, and at her astonished look he explained.

She shook her head admiringly and with surprise. "You boys continually amaze me—you seem able to do anything."

Jon shrugged that off. "When a thing has to be done, a fellow usually can figure out some way of doing it."

"Besides," Jak grinned, "we're like those old chaps on Terra who used to say, 'The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a little longer.'"

They left her then and hurried out of the ship. Even though they felt there could be no possible danger here—they could see for miles in every direction, and noticed nothing moving—they were wise enough from experience to carry their rifles slung across their backs, and wore bandoliers of ammunition. In addition, both carried tools and what equipment they felt might be needed.

Once outside, they ran first to the river, and tested the water. It was fresh and clear, and they knew this would be a good source of water for their proposed city ... until men might pollute it with their garbage and wastes.

"Got your pedometer?" Jak asked.

"Sure, right here in my coverall pocket. Why?"

"I suggest this would be a good place for the center of the town's north side...."

"Yes, here by the riverbank would...."

"I'll go east and you go west a half mile each, then we'll set our corner stakes."

"Then we'll both walk south a mile and set those, and have the four corners done. Sometimes, Owl, I have to give you credit for having brains."

"Wish I could say the same about you." Jak reached out and gave his brother a friendly shove. "Get going, Stupe. And when we start south, be sure you keep your line straight."

"Look who's yelping. Mine'll be as plumb as yours—probably more so, because I'm a better plumber than you are."

Jon started his pacing, while Jak went in the opposite direction after a pretended "grrr" at Jon's horrible pun.

When they returned to the ship, as the sun was going down, they felt they had made a good beginning. But as they went into the control room to talk alone, away from their mother's hearing—lest they worry her—they were not too cheerful.

"You know anything about surveying?" Jak slumped into a seat.

"Nope, not a sardine's worth." Jon paced forth and back in the little room. "That's what has me worried. How're we going to place those other marking stakes in exactly the right spots."

"Guess we'll have to measure them some other way."

"How?"

"Darned if I know. You're the mechanically—minded one—I thought you could figure it out."

Jon continued his pacing, his young forehead creased with thought. Finally, just as their mother called them to dinner, he looked up excitedly. "Hey, it'll be easy, after all!"

"How?" Jak was as excited as his brother as they went in to the living quarters and sat down at the table.

"A light plastic line that won't stretch, exactly measured, and fastened to two metal pin-stakes. We'll make two sets, and...."

"I get it. One the length of the blocks, the other the width of the streets."

"Right. Stick a pin in the ground, measure out the line, then plant one of our regular stakes."

"Then give a yank, pull the pin out and haul it in. Then use the other set to measure the street...."

"Yes, just keep going. Hey, I believe with that system we could each work alone, so I'll make two sets."

Jak thought all this over swiftly for several minutes, working fork and knife and jaws meanwhile. Finally, between mouthfuls, he said slowly, "I can't see a flaw in it—as long as we're mighty careful. Do you think it'll pass inspection?"

"If we take our time and make sure we're right, I don't see why not."

"What're you boys talking about now?" Their mother set a refilled dish of steaming Chlorella stew on the table, and resumed her own seat.

They explained, and told her the necessity of what they had to do in order to prove up their father's claim on this system, when they returned to Terra and appeared before the Colonial Board with their proofs of prime discovery.

The worried look came back into her eyes. "I always understood that surveying was a mighty exact profession. Do you really think you can measure it exactly enough to take the place of a regular survey?"

"I think we can make it close enough so that when Pop wakes up and shows us how to do the final survey with the instruments, we can save a lot of time, at least," Jon assured her. "That's what we're thinking and planning about now."

"You see, Mother," Jak broke in, "if we have the stakes all set, all we'll have to do is to make the sights on each one, after Father teaches us how to use the transit. Then, if we should be off anywhere, we can fix them easily."

"Yes, it'll cut down the time a lot," Jon went on, "and now we're so near done, I want to get everything finished so we can go back to Terra immejit."

"Why? Getting homesick?" his mother teased.

"Not so much that, but we want to get our claim before the Board. Anything can happen when such distances and time are concerned...."

"And we just don't want anything to spoil Father's chances of having this valuable claim verified."

"I see." She smiled now in relief, and again her eyes showed the pride she felt in her two manly boys who were daily proving themselves more than equal to the unusual situations in which they found themselves. "Your father woke up again while you were out, and...."

"He did?" It was a duet of happy excitement.

"... and while he still didn't seem to realize what had happened, he acted even more as though he recognized me. He let me feed him some broth, then went back to sleep again very contentedly."

"Golly, that's great!" Jon reached out and patted her hand.

The three chatted together with more freedom and animation than they had known since the terrible accident first occurred. It seemed as though their worst troubles were over. For Tad Carver was so reliable, so confident in himself, so trust-inspiring—even beyond their natural love for him—that they felt everything would just have to work out right, once he was again in command.

As soon as they had finished eating, the boys hurried to the storeroom and found some metal rods.

"Cut me four lengths about fifteen inches each," Jon ordered as he went to the workbench. He cleared a space, then began getting the tools he wanted, and hooking up the induction furnace.

"You'll need eight for two full sets, won't you?"

"I got to thinking we'd better make only one set for now. If it works out all OK, then we can make the other."

By the time Jak had the pieces cut, Jon was ready to heat one end of each in the furnace, then bend it into a small eye. The other end he sharpened on the emery wheel.

"Now measure out pieces of that plastic rope," he ordered, pointing to a reel of small-diametered but very strong line. "Figure about six inches extra on each...."

"Look, Chum, you tend to your job and give me credit for brains enough to know that much." Jak's tone was almost cross, for sometimes this younger brother got on his nerves, since Jon did occasionally get quite "bossy."

But the elder quickly subdued that feeling—helped by the surprised and somewhat hurt look in Jon's eyes. He knew so well that Jon was merely trying—as he himself was learning to do—to see that neither made any mistakes in this important work they were attempting to do in their father's absence. Father was always cautioning them to take pains with whatever they were doing, and they usually accepted his warning and advice—as they did their mother's—without any more grumbling than boys ordinarily make about such "fussing."

But now each of them—and both of them together—had to be, and did try to be, extra painstaking in all the things their father would have cautioned them about, and they checked and rechecked each other constantly. So Jak said nothing more, and quietly helped Jon complete the stakes-and-line sets. After all, he admitted honestly, there were undoubtedly times when he got just as "bossy" as Jon did.

Soon the two sets of pins and line were done. Each of the boys measured each once—twice—to make doubly sure their work was right. Then they cut up and sharpened a number of wooden stakes from some inch-by-inch strips they found in the storeroom.

The next morning they started out early. Each carried a bundle of the marking stakes, and Jon had a small sledge in one hand. In addition, they had their rifles slung across their backs.

"Working together to begin with," Jon said at breakfast, "we can start the eastward leg from the southwest corner, and run it a ways, then come back and start the northward one from this same corner."

"Yes, if we get that first corner square and right, there's less chance of the other three being wrong—they'll more or less check themselves."

They soon found they could work at quite a swift pace, and at lunch time Jon cried, "At this rate we'll have time to go back and re-check everything, and still get done within our two weeks."

"Yes, if we don't run into any trouble, this seems to be working out fine. Much better than I'd have given you credit for being able to figure out, Chubby."

"Catfish to you, Brother!" Jon grinned. "Hey, that reminds me. I want to see if that river's got any fish in it—and no...." He caught himself and stopped, but Jak knew what he meant. Their mother still didn't know about that quicksand Jon had been almost trapped in, and they didn't want her to learn of it.

"I suppose it would be worth knowing," Jak had hastened to say, almost as if interrupting. "For once your eternal love of fishing will have its good points—as well as getting us fresh food. What about the ocean?"

"I'll try that, too, if I have time. Surf-fishing won't tell us too much about the deeper sea, and I haven't any heavy tackle for anything very big if we happen to run into it. But probably, close to shore like I'll have to fish, we wouldn't catch anything my lines and hooks won't handle."

"If you can handle 'em," Jak said with a grin.

"Don't you worry about me," Jon retorted. "I can pull in anything I can get my hook on."

"Except a sunken ship," Jak jibed, and Jon's face grew red. That incident, when he and his father had been fishing off the coast of Southern California, back in Terra's Pacific Ocean, was still a tender subject with him. He had had to cut his line that time, because they could not loosen his hooks, and he had lost a favorite spinner and leader and half his best line.

That first week passed uneventfully. The boys worked hard, from shortly after sunup to almost sundown. So hard, in fact, that their mother finally protested after noticing that they were so weary that they slumped in their chairs at the table and could hardly eat each evening when they returned to the ship.

"Now you boys listen to your mother," she commanded one night at dinner. "I'm just as anxious to get back to Earth as you are, but there's no sense killing yourselves to save a day or two. From now on, you are to start an hour later, and quit an hour earlier."

Jak managed a weak grin. "Guess you're right, Mother. But we are coming along fine."

"Sure, we've almost completed outlining the site. We'll have to take tomorrow off anyway, to go to the forest out there and cut some more stakes," Jon added.

"It'll make a nice vacation. I'm really fed up with so much sameness of hard work."

"Yes, it's been a steady grind, no fooling, but we wanted to get it done as quick as we can, so Pop can check it."

For their father had been waking up several times every day, their mother reported. True, he had only been conscious for short periods, and was still too weak to be bothered with any of their problems. But, she told the boys, he was able to eat something each time he awoke, and his mind was clear again. She was preparing easily eaten and digested foods that would bring back his strength quickly.

Jak asked anxiously whether his father had mentioned how the leg felt, and Mrs. Carver told him, "He says it doesn't pain any, although sometimes it itches beneath the cast."

Later on,