"Attention. One-seven-two. Your basket is not yet half filled, your oxygen tank is nearly empty. You will receive no more food or oxygen until you deliver your quota of ore. Get busy."
"To hell with you!" fumed Bormon—quite vainly, as he well knew, for the helmet of his space suit was not provided with voice-sending equipment. Nevertheless, after a swift glance at the oxygen gauge, he began to swing his rock-pick with renewed vigor, pausing now and then to toss the loosened lumps of ore into the latticed basket. On Earth, that huge container, filled with ore, would have weighed over a ton; here on Echo its weight was only a few pounds.
Neal Bormon had the average spaceman's dread of oxygen shortage. And so, working steadily, he at last had the huge basket filled with ore—almost pure rhodium—judging by the color and weight of the lumps. Nearby, a jagged gash of light on the almost black shoulder of Echo indicated the location of that tremendous chasm which cut two-thirds of the way through the small asteroid, and in which the Martians had installed their machine for consuming ore.
Locating this gash of light, Bormon set out toward it, dragging the basket of ore behind him over the rough, rocky surface.
The ultimate purpose of that gargantuan mechanism, and why this side of the planetoid apparently never turned toward the sun, were mysteries with which his mind struggled but could not fathom.
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...."