Satellite of Fear

Inside the crippled Comet , a hard-bitten crew watched the life-giving oxygen run low. Outside, on Ceres' fabled Darkside, stalked death in awful, spectral form.
The Comet's control-room was silent except for the monotonous beat of Ken Grant's restless pacing. Six months on Ceres' frigid, shadowy Darkside had driven the tan from his face, etched lines of worry about his mouth. Darkside had a way of doing that to people. A temperature of five above absolute zero, the grim, eternal darkness, the insane landscape, combined to give an impression of unreality that made one feel he was living some terrible nightmare.
From time to time Grant glanced at the sidereal chronometer, shook his head. Sixteen hours! Sixteen hours since Kennerly had left ... and the heating unit of his space-suit had been good for three! Kennerly had vanished, just as Allers had vanished before him! Two men had left the disabled ship to try and reach Bowman's Crater, that last tiny outpost only twenty miles away, and both men had disappeared. Had either Allers or Kennerly been successful, a rescue ship from Bowman's Crater must have come by now. But instead, the two spacemen had been swallowed up by the gloom, vanished, leaving no trace. The bitter silent darkness outside was like some yawning limitless void into which men went, and did not return. Their position was bad enough in any case, but with a woman in command....
Grant shot a glance at the stack of big lead chests in a corner of the cabin. Pitchblend—radium ore with an amazingly high metal content. The ore in those big chests, when refined, would yield over a million in the rare element. Not that a million would do them much good if they couldn't get it away. With the main fuel intake valve cracked, the motors, the radio, the air-regenerator, were all shut off. Death from lack of oxygen faced them unless word got through.
A click of the cabin's door broke Grant's thoughts. He turned; a slender girl wearing riding breeches and leather jacket appeared in the doorway. Pale, with deep smoke-gray eyes and auburn hair, she had a fragile transcendental beauty that was very appealing, but her chin was firm, determined.