t is
built of platinum, iridium, and noble alloys--the only substances known
that will literally last forever. Believe me, ace of my bosom, I don't
wonder that it cost them lives to build it--with their conditions, I
don't see how they ever got it built at all."

Before them rose an immense, flat-topped cone of metal, upon the top of
which was situated the power plant. Twelve massive pillars supported a
flat roof, but permitted the air to circulate freely throughout the one
great room which housed the machinery. They climbed a flight of stairs,
passed between two pillars, and stared about them. There was no noise,
no motion--there was nothing that _could_ move. Twelve enormous masses
of metallic checkerwork, covered with wide cooling fins, almost filled
the vast hall. From the center of each mass great leads extended out
into a clear space in the middle of the room, there uniting in mid-air
to form one enormous bus-bar. This bar, thicker than a man's body, had
originally curved upward to the base of an immense parabolic structure
of latticed bars. Now, however, it was broken in midspan and the two
ends bent toward the floor. Above their heads, a jagged hole gaped in
the heavy metal of the roof, and a similar hole had been torn in the
floor. The bar had been broken and these holes had been made by some
heavy body, probably a meteorite, falling with terrific velocity.

"This is it, all right," Stevens spoke to distant Barkovis. "Sure
there's nothing on this beam? If it should be hot and I should short
circuit or bridge it with my body, it would be just too bad."

"We have made sure that nothing is connected to it," the Titanian
assured him. "Do you think you can do anything?"

"Absolutely. We've got jacks that'll bend heavier stuff than that, and
after we get it straightened the welding will be easy, but I'll have
to have some metal. Shall I cut a piece off the pavement outside?"

"That will not be necessary. You will find ample stores of space metal
piled at the base of each pillar."

"All x. Now we'll get the jack, Nadia," and they went back to their
vessel, finding that upon Saturn, their combined strength was barely
sufficient to drag the heavy tool along the floor.

"Stand aside, please. We will place it for you," a calm voice sounded in
their ears, and a pale blue tractor beam picked the massive jack lightly
from the floor, and as lightly lifted it to its place beneath the broken
bus-bar and held it there whi