shed the collapsed and blackened thing with the slender bones,
aside. They crept into the flat, horizontal spaces of the dwelling--much
more like chinks than the rooms that humans would inhabit. They shoved
away soft, multi-colored fabrics spun from glass-wool, a metal case with
graduated dials and a lens, baubles of gold and glinting mineral.

In a recess in the masonry, ribboned with glazed copper strips that led
to clear globes and curious household appliances, they found what they
wanted. Six little oblong boxes bunched together. Their outsides were
blue ceramic.

Frank Nelsen and Miguel Ramos began to work gingerly, though the gloves
of their old Archer Threes were insulated. Here, sixty million years of
stopped time had made no difference to these nuclear batteries, that,
because of the universal character of physical laws, almost had to be
similar in principle to their own. They had almost known that it would
make no difference. There had been no drain of power through the
automatic safety switches.

"DC current, huh?" Ramos said, breathing hard of the rotten air in his
helmet.

"Yeah--gotta be," Frank answered quickly. "Same as from a thermocouple.
Voltage about two hundred. Lots of current, though. Hope these old
ionics'll take it."

"We can tap off lower, if we have to... Here--I'll fix you, first...
Grab this end..."

They had a sweating two hours of rewiring to get done.

With power available, they might even have found a way to distill and
collect the water, usually held in the form of frost, deep-buried in the
soil of any large surface-fragment. They might have broken down some of
the water electrolytically, to provide themselves with more oxygen to
breathe. But perhaps now such efforts were not necessary.

When they switched in the new current, the pumps of their equipment
worked better at once. The internal lights of their air-restorers could
be used again, augmenting the action of the pale sunshine on the
photosynthetic processes of the chlorophane. The air they breathed
improved immediately. They tested the power on the shaky ionics, and got
a good thrust reaction.

"We can make it--I think," Frank Nelsen said, speaking low and quick,
and with the boldness of an enlivened body and brain. "We'll shoot up,
out of the Belt entirely, then move parallel to it, backwards--contrary
to its orbital flow, that is. But being outside of it, we won't chance
getting splattered by any fragments. Probably a