"Now what in tarnation would that be?" Chow asked, staring at an object on Tom's workbench. "It looks like one o' them merry-go-round lawn sprinklers--or a silver spider, mebbe."

Tom laughed. "It's a model of an atmosphere-making machine, Chow."

"You mean, a contraption fer makin' air?" A frown wrinkled the cook's forehead. "But brand my spurs, why bother makin' air? Ain't we got plenty to breathe already?"

"Here on earth we do. But on the moon and some [some?] planets, space travelers won't find any, so they'll have to make their own."

"Well, brand my ox-eegen mask!"

"Speaking of oxygen," Tom said with a grin, "my machine will not only shoot out a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen--it will also make the stuff cling together, so that it can't drift away when there's not enough gravity to hold it in place."

Chow scowled at Tom suspiciously. "An' just how do you make gases stick together? Add a little glue mebbe?"

Tom chuckled. "By using Inertite." This was a special paint that Tom had concocted from rocks taken from the Caves of Nuclear Fire in Africa. "You see, when Inertite is exposed to radioactivity, it generates a field of high-energy waves. And the waves, in turn, make the molecules of gas attract one another."

Chow's face creased into a cheerful grin. "I don't savvy a word of it, son, but if you say so, I reckon it must be true!"

"Same here!" Bud groaned. "It's way over my head!"

"It'll be way over all our heads," said Tom, pointing to a blueprint of his machine. "The 'spider' will be suspended about five hundred feet in the air."

Bud looked mystified. "But what holds it up?"

Everyone ate a meal of compressed rations, then piled out of the tanks and went to work. As Tom worked with the crew erecting the atomic reactor, Bud supervised the men who were installing the radib generator, powered by one of Tom's solar batteries. The atmosphere spreader was then lifted on the ionic beam, and the gas feed line was hooked up to the bank of compressed oxygen tanks.

"All set, skipper," Bud reported.

"Fast work, fellows!" Tom congratulated the crew.

Bud grinned. "What else did you expect with Whiz Barclay bossing the job?"

"Watch it, boy! You'll break an arm patting yourself on the back!" Tom chuckled.

He checked various connections, then flicked a switch and opened the gas valve. Instantly the atmosphere spreader whirled into motion, becoming a silvery blur.

"How soon can we take off our space suits?" one of the workers wanted to know.

Tom replied, "First we must get the reactors working to produce enough gas to blanket the satellite. If all goes well, we'll be breathing the stuff by tomorrow and we'll notice a difference before dark tonight."

Everyone now turned to finishing the atomic reactor, except Kent, who went scouting for a good supply of iron oxide ore. This would be used in the atomic furnace to produce oxygen for the atmosphere-making machine.

The young metallurgist returned shortly with several reddish chunks. "There's an adequate supply up there, Tom," he reported.

Bud, who was standing by, frowned dubiously. He glanced up the rocky slope where Kent had found the ore, then back to Tom. "But how do we get the stuff down here to the pile--bucket brigade or wheelbarrow?"

"You're getting tired, Whiz. Better take it easy." Tom patted his pal's arm sympathetically. He grinned and added, "Just watch."

Taking a small charge of explosive from one of the tanks, Tom headed up the slope, scouted around a bit, then planted the charge at a strategic point. After clearing the area, he touched off the blast.

Boom! A geyser of dirt and rocks sprayed upward, to shower down in all directions. A miniature landslide followed this as tons of the reddish rock came pelting down the slope.

"Hey, I heard that, skipper!" Bud yelled in amazement. This was the first "natural" sound he had noticed since arriving on Little Luna.

Tom nodded happily. "We're building up enough atmosphere to carry sound waves," he replied excitedly. "And here's all the rock we need, just waiting to be shoveled into the reactor."

Within two hours, the reactor was finishing and a chain stoker was rigged up to feed in the rocks. Tom started the small atomic reactor. As the current was generated, it electrolyzed the iron oxide and oxygen began to boil off.

By this time, the tanks of compressed gas were exhausted. Tom spun a valve, permitting the gas feed line to draw oxygen from the reactor. In a matter of seconds, the little satellite was well on its way to producing its own atmosphere.

Shortly before the evening meal, Kent came into Tom's laboratory with several reddish chunks of rock, flecked with metallic glints.

"Tom, I think this ore may be our best bet for producing oxygen in the atomic furnaces!" he announced excitedly.

"I'll look at it under the spectrograph," the young inventor said. He took the rock samples into the metallurgy laboratory. A few minutes later both scientists were grinning happily.