The men watched it in silence. Perhaps thirty seconds after it disappeared, there was a minor convulsion in the neck, a momentarily rising hum from the machinery, and a plug of dirt about two centimeters in diameter and five long was ejected from a port in the center of the drum. This was seized by Lampert and examined briefly, then tossed aside. "The soil is pretty deep," he remarked.
"How far down did that come from?" asked Mitsuitei.
"One meter. That's the sampling interval I've set in it, for now. If it meets anything much harder or easier to penetrate, it will warn me and I'll grab them more frequently." Conversation lapsed while two more samples arrived and were inspected. Then a light flickered on the panel, and Lampert reset one of his knobs; and almost immediately a core of light gray limestone was produced.
"Apparently the same stuff as the cliffs," said Lampert after examining the specimen. "Do you want to go any deeper, or drill a few more holes to get an idea of the contour?"
"How fast will that thing go through limestone?"
"A couple of centimeters per minute. It's too small to pack a real power unit."
"Give it five minutes, just to make sure it isn't a building block."