noon
Once , he had gone for two hours in a direction that was fifty degrees off course . The rest stops also were more frequent now , with each boy throwing his pack to the ground and lying flat on his back , to enjoy the cool breeze that never failed to soothe their scorched faces . When the sun rose out of the desert on the morning of the ninth day , they stopped , ate a light breakfast of preserved figs , divided the juice evenly among them , and , ripping the space cloth into three sections , wrapped it around themselves like Arabs and continued to walk . By noon , with the sun directly overhead , they were staggering . At two-thirty the sun and the heat were so overpowering that they stopped involuntarily and tried to sit on the hot sand only to find that they could n't and so they stumbled on . Neither Roger nor Astro asked for water . Finally Tom stopped and faced his two unit-mates wobbling on unsteady legs .