Bud asked.
“I xvish I knew,” said Tom. “Well, we’ll have to radio for help! Good thing that works on a separate system.”
Treading water, Tom hastily extracted his miniaturized two-way emergency radio from a zippered pocket. He switched it on, then gasped in dismay as the set failed to respond.
“What’s wrong? Won’t it work?” Bud asked.
“Dead as a doornail! Try yours!”
Bud’s radio, too, would not operate.
“What are we going to do, Tom?” Bud gulped.
The hydronauts were alone and helpless on the darkened Atlantic, hundreds of miles from landl
CHAPTER II
SOS!
TOM’S voice was grim but calm. “Press the ‘inflate’ button on your suit, Bud.”
Bud obeyed, his fingers groping awkwardly. “Whewl I’d forgotten about that emergency system,” he confessed. “I’m sure glad you thought of everything when you designed this gear!”
The action released gas from a CO, cartridge to fill an inflatable panel around their suits, just above the waist
“At least this’ll keep us afloat should the battery power for our density controls go completely,” Tom said.
Bud swallowed hard in the darkness. Somehow, Tom’s words evoked a chilling picture of their plight-twin specks adrift on an immense ocean.
“Are we on the regular shipping lanes, Tom?”
“Sure. We stand a good chance of being picked up.” Tom spoke in a confident tone of voice to keep up his companion’s spirits, but inwardly he was far less optimistic. Any hope of being sighted 13
14 AQUATOMIC TRACKER
by a passing ship was slim at best. If they drifted far off course, even that hope would dwindle.
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