It seemed to Salvor-Jones that he had been up there forever, with one leg draped over a brace, clumsily working with his heavy gloves. The cold was seeping in more and more in spite of the fact that it could not have been more than half an hour from the time of his ascent. He clambered down at last, beating his hands together to restore circulation. Knucklebone Smith, who had done nothing, leaned against the tower on the storm side. He was staring fixedly at something out in that perpetual night. But there was nothing to see. Only the faint glow of the bluish-white methane crystals, swirling through the frozen gullies of the rugged terrain; sweeping around the dark ridges as they were agitated by the driving stellar dust. "You'll be killed out there," Salvor-Jones said into his mike. "Get behind something, quick!" Smith said nothing. He just stood there, with his back to Salvor-Jones, contemplating the horizon as the storm rippled his uniform. His position had not shifted a fraction of an inch. It was this fact that frightened Salvor-Jones suddenly. He caught his breath, and crept around the edge of the shelter. He reached out and shook his assistant's arm. Knucklebone Smith did not move. There was a gaping hole in the side of his helmet where a rock had struck. He had frozen to death, standing up. * * * * * A sudden flurry of unseen particles buffeted Salvor-Jones and bowled him over. Something big smashed against the roof hatch with such force that the entire beacon shuddered. The lid of the hatch, its braces torn from under it, clanged shut. Then the sudden gust abated. Salvor-Jones crawled over to the escape hatch and looked at it. It was slightly askew; there was plenty of room to get his hands under the edge of it. He tugged manfully in an effort to slide it aside enough to admit him, but in vain. It weighed more than half a ton. He pried at it with his adjustable wrench but it wouldn't budge. He looked around for something longer. There was nothing. Professor Salvor-Jones realized that he was going to die on Pluto. He wished that he believed in prayer. He read the gage of his heating unit. Not much longer. He sat down on the hatch, heedless of the silent flak about him. He envied Knucklebone Smith over there; the man had never known what hit him. Knucklebone was still standing there, tall against the night, rigidly leaning against the superstructure, an impossible caricature of death. Something clicked in Salvor-Jones's brain. One faint, mad hope. He crawled over and tugged at Smith's legs. The tall corpse came crashing down on top of him. He seized one unyielding foot, a big, all-important, boot-clad foot that stuck out at just the right angle, and began to drag Knucklebone across the width of the dome.