The daydream vanished as two men in bulging sub-suits stepped through the rock wall. Their figures were transparent; their feet sank into the ground with each step. Both men suddenly jumped into the air; at mid-arc they switched off their walk-throughs. The figures gained solidity and handed heavily on the floor. They opened their faceplates and sniffed the air.
The shorter man smiled. "It sure smells nice in here, right, Mo?"
Mo was having trouble getting his helmet off; his voice rumbled out through the folds of cloth. "Right, Algie." The helmet came free with a snap.
Pete's eyes widened at the sight, and Algie smiled a humorless grin. "Mo ain't much to look at, but you could learn to like him."
Mo was a giant, seven feet from his boots to the crown of his bullet-shaped head, shaved smooth and glistening with sweat. He must have been born ugly, and time had not improved him. His nose was flattened, one ear was little more than a rag, and a thick mass of white scar tissue drew up his upper lip. Two yellow teeth gleamed through the opening.
Pete slowly closed his canteen and stowed it in the pack. They might be honest rock divers, but they didn't look it. "Anything I can do for you guys?" he asked.
"No thanks, pal," said the short one. "We was just going by and saw the flash of your airmaker. We thought maybe it was one of our pals, so we come over to see. Rock diving sure is a lousy racket these days, ain't it?" As he talked, the little man's eyes flicked casually around the room, taking in everything. With a wheeze, Mo sat down against the wall.
"You're right," said Pete carefully. "I haven't had a strike in months. You guys newcomers? I don't think I've seen you around the camp."
Algie did not reply. He was staring intently at Pete's bulging sample case.
He snapped open a huge clasp knife. "What you got in the sample case, Mac?"
"Just some low-grade ore I picked up. Going to have it assayed, but I doubt if it's even worth carrying. I'll show you."
Pete stood up and walked toward the case. As he passed in front of Algie, he bent swiftly, grabbed the knife hand and jabbed his knee viciously into the short man's stomach. Algie jackknifed and Pete chopped his neck sharply with the edge of his palm. He didn't wait to see him fall but dived toward the pack.
He pulled his army.45 with one hand and scooped out the signal crystal with the other, raising his steel-shod boot to stamp the crystal to powder.
His heel never came down. A gigantic fist gripped his ankle, stop-Ping Pete's whole bulk in midair. He tried to bring the gun around but a hand as large as a ham clutched his wrist. He screamed as the bones grated together. The automatic dropped from his nerveless fingers.
He hung head-down for five minutes while Mo pleaded with the unconscious Algie to tell him what to do. Algie regained consciousness and sat up cursing and rubbing his neck. He told Mo what to do and sat there smiling until Pete lost consciousness.
Slap-slap-slap, slap-slap; his head rocked back and forth in time to the blows. He couldn't stop them, they jarred his head, shook his entire body. From very far away he heard Algie's voice.
"That's enough Mo, that's enough. He's coming around now."
Pete braced himself painfully against the wall and wiped the blood out of his eyes. The short man's face swam into his vision.
"Mac, you're giving us too much trouble. We're going to take your crystal and find your strike, and if it's as good as the samples you got there, I'm going to be very happy and celebrate by killing you real slow. If we don't find it, you get killed slower. You get yours either way. Nobody ever hits Algie, don't you know that?"
They turned on Pete's walk-through and half carried, half dragged him through the wall. About twenty feet away they emerged in another artificial bubble, much larger than his own. It was almost filled by the metallic bulk of an atomic tractor.
Mo pushed him to the floor and kicked his walk-through into a useless ruin. The giant stepped over Pete's body and lumbered across the room. As he swung himself aboard the tractor, Algie switched on the large walk-through unit. Pete saw Algie's mouth open with silent laughter as the ghostly machine lurched forward and drove into the wall.
Pete turned and pawed through the crushed remains of his walkthrough. Completely useless. They had done a thorough job, and there was nothing else in this globular tomb that could help him out. His sub-rock radio was in his own bubble, — with that he could call the army base and have a patrol here in twenty minutes. But there was a little matter of twenty feet of rock between the radio and himself.
His light swung up and down the wall. That three-foot vein of RbO must be the same one that ran through his own chamber.
He grabbed his belt. The airmaker was still there! He pressed the points to the wall and watched the silver snow spring out. Pieces of rock fell loose as he worked in a circle. If the power pack held out— and if they didn't come back too soon. .
With each flash of the airmaker an inch-thick slab of rock crumbled away. The accumulators took 3.7 seconds to recharge; then the white flash would leap out and blast loose another mass of rubble. He worked furiously with his left hand to clear away the shattered rock.
Blast with the right arm — push with the left — blast and push— blast and push. He laughed and sobbed at the same time, warm tears running down his cheeks. He had forgotten the tremendous amounts of oxygen he was releasing. The walls reeled drunkenly around him.
Stopping just long enough to seal his helmet, Pete turned back to the wall of his makeshift tunnel. He blasted and struggled with the resisting rock, trying to ignore his throbbing head. He lay on his side, pushing the broken stones behind him, packing them solid with his feet.
He had left the large bubble behind and was sealed into his own tiny chamber far under the earth. He could feel the weight of a half-mile of solid rock pushing down on him, crushing the breath from his lungs. If the airmaker died now, he would lie there and rot in this hand-hewn tomb! Pete tried to push the thought from his mind — to concentrate only on blasting his way through the earth.
Time seemed to stand still as he struggled on through an eternity of effort. His arms worked like pistons while his bloody fingers scrabbled at the corroded rock.
He dropped his arms for a few precious moments while his burning lungs pumped air. The weakened rock before him crumbled and blew away with an explosive sound. The air whistled through the ragged opening. The pressure in the two chambers was equalizing — he had holed through!
He was blasting at the edges of the hole with the weakened air-maker when the legs walked up next to him. Algie's face pushed through the low rock ceiling, a ferocious scowl on its features. There was no room to materialize; all the impotent Algie could do was to shake his fist at — and through — Pete's face.
A monstrous crunching came from the loose rubble behind him; the rock fell away and Mo pushed through. Pete couldn't turn to fight, but he landed one shoe on the giant's shapeless nose before monster hands clutched his ankles.
He was dragged through the rocky tube like a child, hauled back to the bigger cavern. When Mo dropped him he just slid to the floor and lay there gasping. He had been so close.
Algie bent over him. "You're too smart, Mac. I'm going to shoot you now, so you don't give me no more trouble."
He pulled Pete's.45 out of his pocket, grabbed it by the slide and charged it. "By the way, we found your strike. It's going to make me richer'n hell. Glad, Mac?"
Algie squeezed the trigger and a hammer-blow struck Pete's thigh. The little man stood over Pete, grinning.
"I'm going to give you all these slugs where they won't kill you— not right away. Ready for the next one, Mac?"
Pete pushed up onto one elbow and pressed his hand against the muzzle of the gun. Algie's grin widened. "Fine, stop the bullet with your hand!"