Carl laughed. "Just about the peppiest explosion known to the human
race." He touched M'hort's arm. "I'll find out what he's planning."
Carl went straight to the surface and stood in the cave opening, his
breath hanging in puffy clouds of white. Rex was at that moment letting
down the ship's gangplank. He wheeled the fuel-generator out on its
short tripod.
All day Carl watched as Rex set "pills" of merbohydrate into the rock
face of the snow-shorn, worked-over hill and detonated them. Tons of
chipped rock cascaded toward the mouth of the generator. Rex panted as
he worked with a square-point shovel. The twenty-pound merbohydrate
ingots came rolling out at the rate of one a minute. Rex carried the
ingots into the ship.
As the red star was about to settle for the night behind the
sharply-silhouetted horizon, Rex wheeled the generator back into the
ship. About that time, Carl panted up the hill to the mesa level.
"Rex!" he called.
Rex stood scowling near the airlock. Plainly, Carl was not welcome.