While he was waiting for the EV to contact him, he removed the ingots from his soaking pits and began processing them into structural steel. As a M.A.N., he left much to be desired. He was excellent for mining, and his blast-furnace belly functioned admirably; but his open hearth lacked sufficient tonnage capacity and was much too slow in turning out heats, while his blooming, roughing, and finishing mills were inadequate for the task on hand, not because the internal area devoted to them was too limited, but because the available space had not been put to maximum use. The same objection held true for his continuous mills, and as for his parts-replacement shop, he sometimes wondered whether he would last out the nine hundred and fifty years guaranteed him by the Company after all.
He had just started the glowing ingots through his blooming mill when the EV's "voice" came through the thought-converter: "EV to 8M. Drop completed successfully—am awaiting your directions."
"This is 8M. Keep sending, and I'll home in on you."
Continuing his internal operations, he set off over the ragged gray hills that characterized the local terrain. Around him, the wind howled in cold and unrelenting fury, but with his hull audios turned way down, he hardly heard it. He hardly heard the crunching of his huge caterpillar tracks either, or the rat-a-tat-tat of the wind-borne pebbles against his metallic body. At length his transperipheral beam picked up the EV. The machine was no more than an indeterminate gray shape at first, but gradually, as he grew closer, it resolved into a trim, streamlined unit considerably smaller than himself. He saw instantly that it was a new model. Its tracks were relatively narrow, and there was a delicate aspect about them. Its mining section was much narrower than his own, while its blast-furnace section was slightly smaller. The open-hearth section, however, was comparatively enormous, and put his own to shame, while the flanks of the processing mills and parts-replacement shop contracted smoothly—rather than unevenly, as did his own—to the terminus-compartment where the nuclear power-plant was located.
A less powerful M.A.N. than himself, certainly; but perhaps a more efficient one. He would see. "Welcome to Jupiter," he said. "I'm 8M—formerly John Sheldon of Earth."
"EV—formerly Helen Quinn of same."
