"Ghouls," said Peer carelessly.
He looked at her suspiciously; but she seemed to be studying the nearby terrain for a good spot to start digging.
"And what were Santis and your mother doing?" he inquired.
"They were looking for some sort of mineral deposit on Old Nameless; I forget just what. How about that spot—just under that little overhang? It looks like good, solid top-rock."
Channok agreed it was just the place. He'd got a drilling attachment mounted to the Asteroid's small all-purpose tractor; and now he went back and ran the machine down the ramp from the storage lock. He ordered Peer, who wanted to help, up a rock about twenty feet overhead, where she perched looking like an indignant elf, out of reach of any stray puffs of the drill-blast. Then he started running a slanting, narrow tunnel down under the overhang.
Half an hour later, when he backed the tractor out of the tunnel, pushing a pile of cooking slag behind him, he saw her standing up on the rock with a small stun-gun in her hand. She beckoned to him.
Channok pulled off his breather-mask, shut off the tractor, and jumped from the saddle.
"What is it?" he called anxiously, trotting towards her, while the machine's clacking and roaring subsided.
"Some of those ghouls!" Peer called back. "Climb up here and I'll show you." She didn't seem worried.