Exit From Asteroid 60

Presently, having reached the rim of the abyss, with only a narrow margin of oxygen left, he commenced the downward passage, his iron-shod boots clinging to the vertical wall of metallic rock, and as he advanced this magnetic attraction became ever more intense. The blaze of lights before him grew brighter and seemed to expand. Dimly, two hundred yards over his head, he could glimpse the opposite wall of the chasm like the opposing jaw of an enormous vise.

He joined the slow-moving stream of workers. They were filing past a guard and out on a narrow metal catwalk that seemed to be suspended--or rather poised--by thin rods in close proximity to a spacious disk which extended from wall to wall of the chasm. They moved in absolute silence. Even when tilted ore-baskets dumped a ton or more ore into the gaping orifice in the center of the disk, there was still no sound--for Echo, small and barren of native life, lacked even the suggestion of a sound-carrying atmosphere.

And that weird soundlessness of the action around him brought a giddy sense of unreality to Neal Bormon. Only the harsh, mechanical voice of the Martian guard, intoning orders with cold and impersonal precision, seemed actually real.

"Attention. One-seven-two. Dump your ore...."

These Earthmen were apparently known by numbers only. Bormon's own number--172--was on a thin metal stencil stretched across the outer surface of the glass vision plate of his helmet; he couldn't forget it.

He obeyed the Martian's order. Then he noticed that men with empty baskets were moving along a curved ramp, like a corkscrew, which led to a different level, whether above or below he could not possibly tell without a distinct mental effort.

He decided it was to a lower level as he moved onward, for the huge disk lost its circularity and became like the curving wall of a cylinder, or drum, down the outside of which the ramp twisted. Fresh ore was also being brought from this direction. And seeming to extend out indefinitely into blackness was a misty shaft, like the beam of a searchlight. Presently the ramp gave way to a tunnel-like passage.

Flexible metal-sheathed tubes dangled from the ceiling. These tubes were labeled: OXYGEN, WATER, NUTRIENT.

Bormon, patterning the actions of those he observed around him began to replenish his supply of these three essentials to life. His space suit was of conventional design, with flasks in front for water and nutrient fluid, and oxygen tank across the shoulders. By attaching the proper tubes and opening valves--except the oxygen inlet valve, which was automatic--he soon had his suit provisioned to capacity.

He had just finished this operation when someone touched his arm. He glanced up at the bulky, tall figure--an unmistakable form that even a month's sojourn on Echo had not been able to rob of a certain virility and youthful eclat.

For a moment they stared into each other's eyes through the vision plates of their helmets and Bormon was struck dumb by the change, the stark and utterly nerve-fagged hopelessness expressed on Keith Calbur's features.

Then Calbur tried to grin a welcome, and the effect was ghastly!

For a moment his helmet clicked into contact with Bormon's.

"Neal," he said, his voice sounding far away, "so they got you, too! We can't talk here.... I'm pretty well shot. Lived in this damn walking tent for ages. No sleep, not since they took me.... Some powder, drug, they put in the nutrient fluid--it's supposed to take the place of sleep--and you can't sleep! Only it doesn't.... You come along with me."

The darkness swallowed them up. Bormon had thrown his rock-pick into his empty basket. And now, by keeping one hand in contact with Calbur's basket, as it bobbed and jerked on ahead, he was able, even in the inky blackness, to keep from straying aside.

After seemingly interminable groping and stumbling, Calbur's light flashed on. They had entered a pocket in the rocks, Bormon realized, a small cavern whose walls would prevent the light from betraying their presence to the guard.

Calbur threw himself exhaustedly down, signifying that Bormon should do likewise, and with their helmets touching, a strange conversation ensued.

Bormon explained, as well as he was able, his presence there.

"When you didn't show up, Keith, in time to blast for Earth," he said, "all we could do was to report your absence to the space police. But they're swamped; too many disappearances lately. Moreover, they're trying to relocate that stream of meteoric matter which wrecked a freighter some time back. They know something is in the wind, but they'll never guess this! For weeks they've had the patrol ship, Alert, scouting around Mars. So, after making the run to Earth and back to Mars--I had to do that, you know--I got back in Quessel again and commenced to pry around, sort of inviting the same thing to happen to me that had happened to you--and here we are."

"We're here for keeps, looks like," answered Calbur grimly, his voice having lost part of that overtone of strained nerves. "A man doesn't last long, so the other prisoners say, two months at the most. These Marts use Earthmen because we're tougher, here at least, and last longer than Marts.... Hell, what wouldn't I give for a smoke!"

"But the purpose, Keith? What's the scheme?"

"I thought you knew. Just Marts with fighting ideas--a crowd backed by wealthy, middle-class Martians who call themselves Lords of Conquest. They're building ships, weapons. First, they're going to take over Mars from the present government, which is friendly to Earth, and then they're going to subdue Earth."

Calbur had switched off his light, as a matter of precaution, and his voice came to Bormon from a seemingly far distant point--a voice from out of the darkness, fraught with fantastic suggestion.

"Ships? You say they're building ships? Where?" Bormon asked, his own voice reverberating harshly within the confines of his helmet.

"In a cavern they've blasted out near the south magnetic pole of Mars. You know that's an immense, barren region--lifeless, cold--bordered on the north by impenetrable reed thickets. They need rhodium in large quantities for hull alloys and firing chambers. That's why they're mining it, here on Echo."

"They'll never get it to Mars," Bormon declared quickly. "Every freighter is checked and licensed by the joint governments of Earth and Mars."

"They won't?" Calbur laughed, distantly. "Listen, Neal--every crateful of ore that's dumped into their machine, here on Echo, gets to Mars within a few hours. And it isn't carried by ships, either!"

"You mean--?"

"I didn't get the answer, myself, until I'd been here for some time. You see, Echo is just a gob of metal--mostly magnetite, except for these granules of rhodium--forty miles in diameter, but far from round. Then there's that chasm, a mammoth crack that's gaped open, cutting the planetoid almost in half. The whole thing is magnetic--like a terrestrial lodestone--and there's a mighty potent field of force across that gap in the chasm. The walls are really poles of a bigger magnet than was ever built by Martians or human being. And of what does a big magnet remind you?"