augh derisively. Umhm-m--the Asteroids Homesteaders Office had
filled these boxes according to a precise survey of the needs of a
peaceful settler on Vesta.

It was like Bubs, with the inquisitiveness of a seven-year-old, to ask:
"What did they think we needed guns for, when they knew there was no
rabbits to shoot at?"

"I guess they kind of suspected there'd be guys like Alf Neely, son,"
John Endlich answered dryly. "Even if they didn't tell us about it."

The next task prescribed by the Homesteaders' School was to secure a
supply of air and water in quantity. Again, following the instructions
they had received, the Endlichs uncrated and set up an atom-driven
drill. In an hour it had bored to a depth of five-hundred feet. Hauling
up the drill, Endlich lowered an electric heating unit on a cable from
an atomic power-cell, and then capped the casing pipe.

Yes, strangely enough there was still sufficient water beneath the
surface of Vesta. Its parent planet, like the Earth, had had water in
its crust, that could be tapped by means of wells. And so suddenly had
Vesta been chilled in the cold of space at the time of the parent body's
explosion, that this water had not had a chance to dissipate itself as
vapor into the void, but had been frozen solid. The drying soil above it
had formed a tough shell, which had protected the ice beneath from
disappearance through sublimation...

Drill down to it, melt it with heat, and it was water again, ready to be
pumped and put to use.

And water, by electrolysis, was also an easy source of oxygen to
breathe.... The soil, once thawed over a few acres, would also yield
considerable nitrogen and carbon dioxide--the makings of many cubic
meters of atmosphere. The A.H.O. survey expeditions, here on Vesta and
on other similar asteroids which were crustal chips of the original
planet, had done their work well, pathfinding a means of survival here.

When John Endlich pumped the first turbid liquid, which immediately
froze again in the surface cold, he might, under other, better
circumstances, have felt like cheering. His well was a success. But his
tense mind was racing far ahead to all the endless tasks that were yet
to be done, to make any sense at all out of his claim. Besides, the
short day--eighteen hours long instead of twenty-four, and already far
advanced at the time of his tumultuous landing--was drawing to a close.

"It'll be dark here mighty quick, Johnny," Rose said. She wa