houlder and at a word began to swing
their picks. Up and down, up and down, smite, smite, carve the rock
away....

Soon they picked up the machine again, and manhandled it out into the
tunnel. The crowd pressed back, and the Mink bellowed for the distant
ones to go up the shaft to the top.

"How you going to get it up to the ground?" asked John. His voice had a
kind of confidence in it, a respect for Revel that surprised the big
miner. John evidently believed in him, was even relying on his mind when
John himself was so overwhelmingly intelligent. Revel wondered: if he,
the Mink, were to fall asleep and wake in a future time, knowing all his
friends and relatives were dead long since, knowing his whole world had
vanished ... would he be as calm and alert and interested in things as
John?

There was a man, by--what was the expression he used?--by god!

"We'll get it there," he said. "So long as you can work it, John, there
aren't any worries."

"Understatement of the millenium, or is that the word I want? Optimistic
crack o' the year. Okay, Revel. It's your baby."

Slowly the men carried the machine to the lip of the shaft. Nothingness
yawned above for ninety feet, below for over a hundred. The shaft was
twenty feet across. "Now what?" asked Lady Nirea.

"There's an ore bucket at the bottom; we toss our coal down the shaft,
and once a day the bucket's drawn up to the top, by a hoisting mechanism
worked by ten men, and the coal's emptied out and taken away in small
loads. The bucket fills that shaft. It's two feet deep but so broad it
holds plenty of coal. You can see the cable out there in the center;
it's as tough as anything on earth."

"I see your idea," said John. "I _hope_ that cable's tough. The machine
weighs a couple of tons."

"Tons?"

"I mean it's heavy!"

* * * * *

Revel bawled for the men at the top to start the winch. Shortly they
heard the creak and groan of the ore bucket, coming slowly toward their
level. When its rim was just level with the floor of the tunnel, the
Mink let go a yell that halted the men on the windlass like a pickax
blow in the belly; then Revel said, "All right, move it onto the
bucket!"

"For God's sake, be careful of it," said John. "That's a delicate
thing." He leaped down into the huge bucket. "Take it easy," he
cautioned the miners, straining and sweating at the work.
"Easy ... easy ... easy!"

The great square mysterious box thru