Attack was the proper word. Hal had thought that John was fast and experienced with the tongs; but this old man was unbelievable. He faced the wall, using both arms at once, and slung the chunks of dead rock behind him without looking. Not only did they all land in the empty car just behind him, but when the car was full, he seemed to know it by instinct and moved on, still without turning to look, to begin filling the car next in line. Hal watched him, fascinated.
"All right, Tad. Let's go."
Hal looked up to see John standing over him and scrambled hastily to his feet, ready to go back to work. Then he realized that the cutting of the ramp was completed but the torchers had not gone back up on the higher level to resume work, themselves. Instead, everyone was climbing into the cars of their own train, perching on top of the ore there.
"Are we through?" Hal said, unable to believe it.
"We're through," said John. "Get aboard."
Lost in his fog of effort, it had not registered on Hal that all the cars of their train were now filled with ore. He glanced once more at the old man and saw that the other had almost finished picking up, in minutes, the rejected rock that Hal had worked a full shift to accumulate.
"What's he doing?" asked Hal, dazedly, as he turned toward the last car of their own train.
"Slag-loading," said John. "Clean-up. He'll take the dead rock for a last sort, in case anything worthwhile's been missed, and pile it at the minehead for pickup and dumping topside on the surface. Get in there, now."
"I can't believe the shift's over," said Hal. He climbed into the last car.
"It's over," said John. He went up and got into the lead car. Hal did not see what controls he used, but as soon as John was aboard the train started moving, backing and filling several times to make the tight turn in the narrow space that would allow it to head back the way they had come.
They hummed and clanked through the tunnels. Perched on the ore in his own half-filled car, Hal abandoned himself to the luxury of being through with the day's work. He felt worn out, but not uncomfortable. In fact, there was a half-pleasant exhausted warmth to his body, now that the labor was done with and he had had some small time to rest. It had been explained to him by Malachi Nasuno within the past year that his immature muscles could not yet be expected to deliver the power that an equal weight of them could provide once he had stopped growing; but that, on the other hand, his recovery rate from exertion would be correspondingly faster than that of an equivalent, older individual - and the older the other individual, the greater Hal's advantage. As he rode the swaying car now, he could feel strength being reborn in him; and this, together with the satisfaction of having gotten through the shift without trouble, left him feeling more secure and comfortable than he had felt at any time since he had left his home on Earth.
It seemed to him that there was now a bond of identity with the other miners riding the ore train back to the skip. He was suddenly close to them. The dark colors and the enclosing walls of the tunnels made one family of them all. For the first time since he had left Earth, he had a sensation of being accepted and belonging somewhere in the universe.
He was still in the warm grasp of this feeling when they reached the terminus room and the bottom of the skip. Other trains, also loaded with ore, were already there, or just pulling in ahead of theirs. They stopped and everyone in Hal's team piled off the loaded cars - Hal following suit. Only John stayed aboard, and when they were all off, he put the train in motion again, driving it off through a tunnel opening beyond the skip.
"What do we do now?" Hal asked one of the other team members, for they were making no move to go toward the skip, which was standing open and waiting at the bottom of its shaft.
"Wait for John," said the team member, a short, lean man in his mid-twenties with a piratical black mustache drooping its ends around the corners of his lips.
Hal nodded. He stood waiting with the rest; and after three or four minutes, John came walking back out of the tunnel into which he had driven the train and rejoined them.
"Half ton over quota," he said, holding a printed slip before tucking it into a chest pocket of his suit. There was a mutter of approval from the other team members.
"Hey, with a new kip! Good!" The miner Hal had spoken to punched Hal's shoulder in friendly fashion - or rather, tried to, for Hal reflexively swayed away from the fist, riding the blow so that the other's gloved knuckles barely touched him. The other did not seem to notice that his punch had not landed.
"Let's ride up!" said John, and led the way toward the skip, which was half full of men from other teams ready to go up as John led his own people on to it.
"Watch it!" a voice called almost in Hal's ear as he stepped aboard. "Watch your feet. We got a new kip with big boots and no manners."
Hal turned and found himself looking across only inches of space into the face of the lean, big-nosed young miner who had complained about his foot being stepped on by Hal on the way down.
"What's the matter with you, Neif?" said the black-mustached miner from Hal's team. "It's his first day."
"I'm not talking to you, Davies." The miner called Neif glanced at Hal's team member. "Let him answer for himself, if he thinks he belongs down in a mine."
The skip closed its door and started upwards with a jerk.
"I didn't touch your foot," said Hal to Neif.
Neif pushed his face close.
"I'm a liar, am I?"
"What's going on over there?" the voice of John Heikkila reached them through the mass of packed bodies. Hal looked away from Neif and said nothing.
The skip rose. When they reached the top and the gates opened, Hal stepped out quickly and moved away from the bodies behind him. In spite of the close-packed ride to the minehead, some of the warmth and identity with his team members while riding the ore cars back to the terminus had now gone from him.
"This way," he heard John's voice in his ear. "We slip these suits, and I'll show you how to check yours for leaks."
Hal followed him back to the room where he had first been given the suit. There, at John's direction, he took it off and watched as John hooked up to the suit a small hose hanging from the wall below a vernier-shaped scale. John sealed the coveralls, tightened the hose about a valve near the suit's belt level and squeezed the tube. The coveralls inflated.
"Fine," said John after a second, deflating the suit. "No leaks. Never forget to do that after every shift. You won't get a second chance. The first time you inhale hot gases downstairs is it."
"I'll remember," said Hal. "Now what - "
"Dinner in forty minutes," John answered without waiting for the question to be finished. "Why don't you go outside - oh, here's someone looking for you."
The someone was Tonina. John went off and Tonina came forward to stand and look Hal up and down.
"How'd you get back before we did?" Hal asked. "I didn't even see you in the skip this morning."
"The shifts are staggered," she said, "so the slag loaders can have a regular round for clean-up. Beson and the rest of us went down before you, so we came back up before you."
"Oh," said Hal. She had led off and he was automatically following her. "Where are we going?"