 How long did Maggie care for Ben before he finally awoke after rescuing him?
A Coffin for Jacob By EDWARD W. LUDWIG Illustrated by EMSH With never a moment to rest, the pursuit through space felt like a game of hounds and hares ... or was it follow the leader? Ben Curtis eased his pale, gaunt body through the open doorway of the Blast Inn, the dead man following silently behind him. Most of the big room lay obscured behind a shimmering veil of tobacco smoke and the sweet, heavy fumes of Martian Devil's Egg. For an instant, Ben's mind rose above the haunting vision of the dead man. Again, its face would be a pop-eyed mask of surprise as Ben's fist thudded into its jaw. You can defeat him or submit to him or ignore him, and the matter is over and done. It had begun a week ago in Luna City. Ben, quietly and moderately, wanted to celebrate. He was three months out of the Academy at White Sands and the shining uniform was like a key to all the mysteries of the Universe. At the age of five—perhaps in order to dull the memory of his parents' death in a recent strato-jet crash—he'd spent hours watching the night sky for streaking flame-tails of Moon rockets. At fourteen, he'd converted an abandoned shed on the government boarding-school grounds to a retreat which housed his collection of astronomy and rocketry books. At sixteen, he'd spent every weekend holiday hitchhiking from Boys Town No. 5 in the Catskills to Long Island Spaceport. There, among the grizzled veterans of the old Moon Patrol, he'd found friends who understood his dream and who later recommended his appointment to the U. S. Academy for the Conquest of Space. And a month ago, he'd signed aboard the Odyssey —the first ship, it was rumored, equipped to venture as far as the asteroids and perhaps beyond. Wait ten years. Until this instant, Ben had suppressed his anger. For some twenty minutes, he raced through a dizzying, nightmare world of dark rocketfront alleys and shouting voices and pursuing feet. A thousand stars—a thousand motionless balls of silver fire—shone above him through Luna City's transparent dome. You can give yourself up, and that's what a good officer would do. Under interplanetary law, that would mean ten years in prison and a dishonorable discharge. So , Ben reflected, you can take a beer-and-pretzels tale seriously. You can hide for a couple of days, get rid of your uniform, change your name.
 Nine days
 Nine days  Three days  Nineteen days.  Six days