closed.
The space-suited men needed no protection.

"Blast," Rip ordered.

A pulse of fire spurted from the top of each boat, driving them
bottom-first toward the asteroid.

"Land at will," Rip said.

The asteroid loomed large as he looked through an opening. It was rocky,
but there were plenty of smooth places.

Dowst picked one. He was an expert pilot and Rip watched him with
pleasure. The exhaust from the top lessened and fire spurted soundlessly
from the bottom. Dowst balanced the opposite thrusts of the top and bottom
blasts with the delicacy of a man threading a needle. In a few moments the
boat was hovering a foot above the asteroid. Dowst cut the exhausts and
Rip stepped out onto the tiny planet.

The Planeteers knew what to do. Corporal Pederson produced hardened steel
spikes with ring tops. Private Trudeau had a sledge. Driving the first
spike would be the hardest, because the action of swinging the hammer
would propel the Planeteer like a rocket exhaust. In space, the law that
every action has an equal and opposite reaction had to be remembered every
moment.

Rip watched, interested in how his men would tackle the problem. He didn't
know the answer himself, because he had never driven a spike on an
airless, almost gravityless world and no one had ever mentioned it to him.

Pederson searched the gray metal with his torch and found a slender spur
of thorium perhaps two feet high a short distance from the boat. "Here's a
hold," he said. "Come on, Frenchy. You, too, Bradshaw."

Trudeau, carrying the sledge, walked up to the spur of rock and stood with
his heels against it. Pederson sat down on the ground with the spur
between his legs. He stretched, hooking his heels around Trudeau's ankles,
anchoring him. With his gloves he grabbed the seat of the Frenchman's
space suit.

Bradshaw took a spike and held it against the gray metal ground. The
Frenchman swung, his hammer noiseless as it drove the tough spike in. A
few inches into the metal was enough. Bradshaw took a wrench from his
belt, put it on the head of the spike and turned it. Below the surface,
teeth on the spike bit into the metal. It would hold.

The rest was easy. The spike was used to anchor Trudeau while he drove
another, at his longest reach. Then the second spike became his anchor,
and so on, until enough spikes had been set to lace the boat down against
any sudden shock.

The boat piloted by the spaceman was tied to the one that would