Twenty men lived to reach it. Failles and his helpers brought in all the injured, but only one was alive. There was practically no gravity, so little that the centrifugal force of the spinning asteroid would have hurled the men back into space but for the magnetic soles of their armored shoes. Magnetic grapnels were attached to hold down the tanks. To make sure, lashings were run to up-thrust fingers of rock and everything loose made secure. Clinging to a rope, Norman stood up and tried out the magnetic soles. They held, but it was necessary to shamble along without raising the feet any more than could be avoided. He looked about and his heart sank. No more eery and desolate place could be imagined. A ragged and uneven surface of bare rock and brittle obsidian-glass ended suddenly in a serrated horizon of ugly needle-point peaks. The horizon was disturbingly close. Overhead, the eternal stars moved in slow parade--but discernible motion--against the black vaults of space. Just above the horizon was the sun, shrunken till its disk was barely perceptible as a disk. It shone feebly, but with harsh brilliance, casting solid shadows which moved like live things over the rough rocks. Suddenly, Norman became conscious of something else. Another object moved swiftly out in space. A torpedo shape, faintly luminous. Failles was pointing toward it. "The Tellus," he said grimly. "It's circling Hidalgo like a moon, coming down in a long spiral orbit. As its momentum decreases, it will come closer and crash. Looks as if we still have our wildcat by the tail." Norman groaned. "When that stuff blows, it'll take this whole end of space with it." Harald was crouching over his helioflash, working awkwardly at the dials with his heavy gloves. "I'm trying to get Scorpio," he explained. "Tell them to warn off the freighters. No luck so far. These tubes are about shot. I can get a faint signal, but can't make out anything." "Keep trying. We've got to warn off the freighters." "I know. In spite of that faintness, the signal sounds as if it might be from fairly close." Merrill came up. "I've been exploring," he said. "There's the wreck of a spaceship just over that ridge. Some sort of shaft close by it. I'm going over and look around." He wandered off across the desolate stretch of rock. Norman watched him go, then turned to Harald. "You'd better follow and watch him. He's ready to crack. I'll take over the helio." Failles shuffled up as Harald disappeared around a harsh shoulder of volcanic rock. "Got through yet?" he snapped. Norman shook his head. "I get a signal but they don't answer. It's too faint to make out." "Let me try." Norman gave way and Failles crouched down adjusting dials. He replaced a tube. The helio squawked savagely. The engineer fumbled over the knobs. The message clacked into his earphones.