At last Salvor-Jones, who knew what he was looking for, found it, six feet up, where a meteorite had smashed into the coaxial and shorted it against the frame. He climbed up and went to work, cursing to himself in his helmet as the death missiles hurtled about him.
It seemed to Salvor-Jones that he had been up there forever, with one leg draped over a brace, clumsily working with his heavy gloves. The cold was seeping in more and more in spite of the fact that it could not have been more than half an hour from the time of his ascent.
He clambered down at last, beating his hands together to restore circulation.
Knucklebone Smith, who had done nothing, leaned against the tower on the storm side. He was staring fixedly at something out in that perpetual night. But there was nothing to see. Only the faint glow of the bluish-white methane crystals, swirling through the frozen gullies of the rugged terrain; sweeping around the dark ridges as they were agitated by the driving stellar dust.
"You'll be killed out there," Salvor-Jones said into his mike. "Get behind something, quick!"
Smith said nothing. He just stood there, with his back to Salvor-Jones, contemplating the horizon as the storm rippled his uniform. His position had not shifted a fraction of an inch. It was this fact that frightened Salvor-Jones suddenly. He caught his breath, and crept around the edge of the shelter. He reached out and shook his assistant's arm.
Knucklebone Smith did not move. There was a gaping hole in the side of his helmet where a rock had struck. He had frozen to death, standing up.