No sooner was it shut than Tom and Astro jumped forward to examine it cautiously. Astro started to pull it open but Tom held out a warning hand. He turned and pointed toward the room that Miles and Brett had left. Astro nodded and they walked quickly back to the door. Sliding it open, they stepped inside.
"By the rings of Saturn!" cried Astro.
"Well, blast my jets!" Tom exclaimed.
The air in the room was clear, completely free of the misty whirling methane ammonia of death that swirled around them outside. Recovering from his surprise quickly, Astro closed the door and walked to the center of the room, looking around curiously. Tom had already slipped off his mask and was examining the equipment lying on the floor. Astro bent over an oddly shaped machine that looked somewhat like an ancient compressed-air drill, with a long bar protruding from one end. He examined the bar closely and then turned slowly to Tom.
"Do you know what this machine is?" he asked in almost a whisper.
Tom looked at it and then shook his head.
"I haven't seen one of these since I left Venus, and then only when I was a kid hanging around the spaceports where the space rats used to blast off for the asteroids looking for uranium."
"You mean you hunt uranium with that thing?" asked Tom.
"No, you dig it out with this."
Tom gazed at the machine thoughtfully. "Why would it be here?" he mused. "It's already been used," said Astro, standing up. "Look, the drill head is dull."