Mercury, cutting the vast magnetic field of the Sun in an eccentric orbit, tortured by the daily change from blistering heat to freezing cold in the thin atmosphere, was a powerful generator of electricity.
Ward didn't come back.
Swearing under his breath, tense for the sound of pursuit in spite of the girl, Gray went to look. Out beyond the hangar, he saw a figure running.
Running hard up into the narrowing cleft of the valley, where natural galleries in the rock of Mercury led to the places where the copper cables were anchored, and farther, into the unexplored mystery of the caves.
Gray scowled, his arrogant Roman profile hard against the flickering aurora. Then he slammed the lock shut.
The ship roared out into the tearing winds of the plain. Gray cut in his rockets and blasted up, into the airless dark among the high peaks.
Jill Moulton hadn't moved or spoken.
Gray snapped on the space radio, leaving his own screen dark. Presently he picked up signals in a code he didn't know.
"Listen," he said. "I knew there was some reason for Ward's running out on me."
His Indianesque face hardened. "So that's the game! They want to make trouble for you by letting me escape and then make themselves heroes by bringing me in, preferably dead.