<h2 id="c10"><br/><i>THE FLYING MOUNTAIN</i></h2>
<p>Steve and Sue were playing a
game as the freighter headed through space
toward Earth. It was fun trying to see who
could build the higher tower of sticks. The
young Shannons were in extra good spirits.
Before long they would be seeing Mom and
their home in Arkansas, after being in space
for so many months.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_133">133</div>
<p>Steve carefully placed the last stick on his
tower which was almost as high as he could
reach.</p>
<p>“<i>I</i> won, Sis!” he exclaimed. But as he drew
his hand away, it brushed against the tower,
causing the sticks to drift off in all directions.</p>
<p>“<i>I</i> won!” Sue cried gleefully, “Yours broke
up!”</p>
<p>Steve made a face and began picking the
sticks out of the air before they floated too
far. It was lack of weight in space that made it
possible to play such a game. The twins
would have hung in the air like the sticks if
their shoe soles were not held to the floor by
magnetism.</p>
<p>“I’ll beat you next time,” Steve boasted.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_134">134</div>
<p>Before they could start again, their father
came into the room. “It looks as though we
may not be getting home as quickly as we had
expected, kids. Captain Furman has received
an S. O. S. from a passenger rocket that’s
down on the asteroid, Sierra.” The twins
knew an asteroid to be one of the thousands
of tiny planets in the Solar System.</p>
<p>“Are we going to her aid?” Steve asked.</p>
<p>“It depends on whether we have enough
fuel or not,” his father replied. “Even atomic
fuel runs out sometime, you know. Captain
Furman is talking with his officers now. It’ll
be a shame if we can’t help the <i>Pole Star</i>—as
much as I want to see Mom.”</p>
<p>It was just like his unselfish dad to say that,
Steve thought. He felt the same way about it.
And he didn’t doubt that tender-hearted Sue
was of the same mind.</p>
<p>Mr. Shannon started out of the room again.
“I’m going to see what they are going to do.”</p>
<p>Steve and Sue went back to their game. But
somehow it wasn’t as much fun now. People
were in trouble and trouble in space was
often a frightening thing.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_135">135</div>
<p>It seemed like a long time before their
father came back. He walked in so fast that
his magnetic shoes sounded like tiny hammers.
“Kids,” he said, “the captain wants to
see you.”</p>
<p>“<i>Us?</i>” Steve asked.</p>
<p>“That’s right. Come quickly.”</p>
<p>They went out, leaving some sticks in mid-air
and others drifting off. The young Shannons
walked shyly into the captain’s room
where all the officers stood. Steve felt out of
place among the neatly uniformed spacemen.</p>
<p>Mr. Shannon was in charge of cargo which
the freighter dropped off at different ports in
space, for he was an official of the American
Space Supply Company. But he had nothing
to do with the running of the ship.</p>
<p>“Young folks,” said the tall captain, who
had a blond mustache, “we want you to help
us solve a problem.”</p>
<p>“Sir?” Steve asked, puzzled.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_136">136</div>
<p>“Here it is,” went on the chief, in his
booming voice. “If we go on past Earth to
Sierra to help the <i>Pole Star</i>, it’ll leave us with
only a fifty-fifty chance of having enough fuel
to reach Earth. But the <i>Pole Star</i> is running
short of supplies and their radio just went
dead a while ago. It’s too late to get help from
Earth. The crew is divided on what we
should do, so I decided to call you two in to
see what you think.”</p>
<p>A husky crewman spoke out boldly, “What
do these kids know about space, Captain?
They’re not even old enough to be out here!
I say stick to our course and get this crew and
ship back safely to Earth!”</p>
<p>The remark angered Steve, but the spaceman
looked too big to talk back to. Sue wasn’t
so timid.</p>
<p>“You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”
she exclaimed. “Thinking of yourself when
other people are in trouble!”</p>
<p>Steve and his father were surprised at Sue’s
outburst. Captain Furman and the other
crewmen smiled.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_137">137</div>
<p>“I think that solves our problem,” the captain
spoke firmly. “If the young lady has
courage enough to overlook the risk, the rest
of us should have it, too. Thank you, Sue.
We move at full rocket thrust to aid the <i>Pole
Star</i>.”</p>
<p>As the Shannons went out into the corridor,
Steve asked his sister, “Wow, Sue, what
made you talk back to that big fellow like
that?”</p>
<p>“He was so selfish!” Sue answered. “Besides,
it made me mad to hear him say we
didn’t know anything about space! Why,
we’ve been over almost all of the Solar System,
haven’t we, Dad?”</p>
<p>Her father pressed her shoulder. “Of
course, honey. I’m proud of you, because I
felt the same way.”</p>
<p>It took a few days for the freighter to reach
the asteroid. The space ship, in going past
the Earth, had come close enough for the
Earth to be seen as a misty, green light. It
made the twins long for home as they saw it.</p>
<p>“Sierra is like a big meteor, isn’t it, Dad?”
Steve asked, as the three of them looked
downward on the flat, egg-shaped rock.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_138">138</div>
<p>His father nodded. “It’s often called, ‘The
Flying Mountain,’ because of the low peaks
on it. Sierra is only a mile long and less than
that wide.”</p>
<p>“I remember from school that it wasn’t discovered
until 1965,” Sue said.</p>
<p>“That’s because it’s so small and isn’t very
bright in the sky,” her father spoke. “Most
of the asteroids are much farther out, between
Mars and Jupiter, but a few come in
close to Earth like Sierra, Hermes, Eros and
some others.”</p>
<p>The freighter landed safely in a flat area
about two hundred feet from the <i>Pole Star</i>.
The Shannons could see the damaged space
ship jammed against a cliff. Brilliant sunshine
reflected upward from bare dark rock,
dazzling their eyes. It was over a hundred
degrees on Sierra, for there was no atmosphere
to check the sun’s heat.</p>
<p>“Boy, what a place for a sunburn!” Steve
said.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_139">139</div>
<p>“It’s certainly summertime on Sierra!” Sue
added.</p>
<p>They watched crewmen in space suits come
out of the freighter and begin uncoiling a
spool of rope that would stretch between the
two ships. Safety lines led from all the men
back to the cargo ship.</p>
<p>“There’s almost no gravity at all here,”
Mr. Shannon told his son and daughter, “because
the asteroid is so small. If the people
from the <i>Pole Star</i>—providing there are any
alive—didn’t have the rope to hang on to, they
might float right off Sierra.”</p>
<p>The children asked to go outside. The
three suited up and went out, using safety
lines, just in case.</p>
<p>The glare was so strong that they had to
lower their darkening glasses over the face
part of their helmets. The heat was such that
they had to switch on the cooling outfits in
their suits. It was strange to see the edge of
the asteroid so close, just beyond a fringe of
dagger-like peaks. It was like being on a big
space raft.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_140">140</div>
<p>The twins tried walking. They were less
than feather-light and it was quite a job for
them even to keep upright. Sue decided this
wouldn’t be a very good place to spend a summer
vacation.</p>
<p>Sue’s cooling outfit made her sneeze. She
was lifted right off the ground and her father
had to pull her down quickly. She and Steve
laughed but they had been scared.</p>
<p>“See, it doesn’t take much to send you sky
high!” Mr. Shannon joked, speaking over the
radio set which all three of them carried in
their space suits.</p>
<p>At last the crewmen, who had been moving
so carefully over the ground toward the
<i>Pole Star</i>, reached the ship and fastened the
rope to it. The outer door of the <i>Pole Star</i>
was then opened by someone inside.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_141">141</div>
<p>“Thank goodness somebody’s alive in
there!” Mr. Shannon said thankfully. “I guess
the ship just coasted into the rock wall without
too much force.”</p>
<p>The freighter crew began helping people
out of the passenger rocket. If things weren’t
so serious, it would have been funny for Sue
and Steve to see them in their balloon-like
space suits, bouncing one careful step at a
time and holding on for dear life to the rope.</p>
<p>As the party neared the freighter, the twins
suddenly saw their father dash toward the
ship. In his haste, Mr. Shannon seemed to
have forgotten where he was and went scooting
upward like a high-jumper.</p>
<p>“Dad!” Sue and Steve cried out together.</p>
<p>Mr. Shannon had to put out his hands and
feet at the last minute to keep from crashing
into the wall of the freighter. Then he pulled
himself down to the ground with his safety
line. When they saw that their father was unhurt,
Sue and Steve began walking toward the
ship with careful steps.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_142">142</div>
<p>They heard their dad exclaim, “Mr. Ballinger!”
as he walked over to one of the men
from the <i>Pole Star</i>.</p>
<p>“John Shannon!” the man said.</p>
<p>It turned out that Mr. Ballinger was the
president of the American Space Supply
Company and was Mr. Shannon’s boss. Mr.
Ballinger explained that the <i>Pole Star</i> was
heading for Mars when there was an explosion
in the rocket tubes. By landing on Sierra
the captain thought there was a better chance
of their being found than if they had just
kept drifting in space, because all ships knew
the path of “The Flying Mountain.” No one
had been hurt in the landing and the <i>Pole
Star</i> had enough fuel to get the freighter back
to Earth.</p>
<p>“I don’t know whether I should fire you
people or not for risking my good freighter
just to save an old codger like me!” the
friendly Mr. Ballinger joked.</p>
<p>“We almost didn’t,” Steve’s dad reminded
him and explained how Sue’s outburst had
decided the problem.</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_143">143</div>
<p>“You’ve certainly got some smart ones
there, John,” Mr. Ballinger said, smiling at
Sue and Steve. “Your son has already proved
himself a hero before and now it’s Sue. Yes,
sir, I sure wish I had a pair like them!”</p>
<p>But the twins scarcely heard him. They
were thinking that, in spite of the great fun
they had had on all their space adventures,
how wonderful it was going to be to see Mom
again and set foot on the grandest planet in
all the Solar System—Earth!</p>
<div class="pb" id="Page_144">144</div>
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