"This way!" Spurlin exclaimed, making a hasty detour from the spot. Barely a hundred yards away Jim could discern a vague swirling mistiness, in the form of a huge column that reached up to touch the roof. Suddenly, he knew what it was, knew also that it would be death for any man who ventured too close.
"Ionization zone." Spurlin voiced Jim's own thoughts as they hurried in the detour. "An electronic tower of strength! There are usually six of them in a straight line across this cave, but once in a while new ones spring up out of nowhere. I think Bhruulo controls them."
Jim nodded uncomfortably, and tried not to think what would happen if all those electronic zones failed, with millions of tons of ice above them.
They reached their objective at last. Tunnels were in evidence where the men had been taking out the ore. They resumed work at once, but it was slow and heart-breaking. Their tools were crude, and the ore was the most difficult Jim had ever handled.
Wessel worked harder than any of them, his eyes agleam with a new excitement. "Look at that stuff," he said once to Conley. "Over fifty per cent pure content, most of it!"
It was perhaps an hour later when Spurlin called a halt. "Enough for today. We'll try again tomorrow."
Jim didn't need to ask why they must stop. Already he felt that strange tingling in every fiber of his being, which increased as the minutes passed, and he knew that here was a dangerous thing.
"We have so little time in which to work up here," Spurlin said as they hurried back. "Do you see now, Jim Landor, why it's taken us close to three years?"
Jim saw, indeed. Within him there surged a vast admiration for these men who had persevered in the face of almost insurmountable difficulties, to build their spaceship from the barest resources around them.
Yet close upon this there leaped to Jim's mind another thought, unannounced and without reason. It was simply a feeling that there was something vastly, terribly wrong with what these men were doing! It was more than a feeling, it was a certainty! It didn't make sense—that they shouldn't escape from M'Tonak—but now Jim knew it!