"Then let's get to it!" Caxton came to his feet, towered over his squatting partner.
Headley struggled upright, fighting the super-gravity, led the way down the edge of the escarpment. Time and again, he fell, tripped by the gravity, whirled aside by the smashing wind. Each time, he struggled erect, forced himself to go forward again.
He watched the needle floating in its case, followed its point unerringly toward a shallow recess in the cliff's base. Using his belt pick, he chopped at the layer of ice and snow, let out a shout of relief when a strip of reddish metal appeared.
"This is it," he announced. "Now the repair job will be simple."
Bart Caxton nodded, seeing the metal, and for a brief second his hand hovered over the single gun strapped to his suit. Then he relaxed, caught his pick in his right hand, bent forward to help smash away great chunks of the metal.
"It's almost anticlimactic," he said shortly, "finding this stuff so easily."
Tom Headley grinned. "It would have been more anticlimactic," he said, "not to have found it. I've found traces of it on every planet I've visited."
Then they worked without further conversation, digging loose a great pile of the metal, making staggering trips to the ship with the precious element that was the only metal with which their rocket tubes could be repaired. Hours later, they cogged the port shut on their ship, exhausted the tainted air, released a breathable atmosphere.
Out of their suits, they ate a quick meal, began the task of smelting the kronalium so that it would fit the wrecked drive mechanism at the rear of the ship. Headley worked with the quiet sureness of a man whose life had been self-sufficient; Caxton worked with the grim doggedness of a man who knows that his life hinges upon his speed in working.